Moving elderly around must be done in systematic way

2:49pm Wednesday 27th August 2008

I WENT to a meeting at the Crownfield Road Centre yesterday and I was most disturbed at the suggestion that it could be closed.

There were about 80 people there and the response is distress.

People have been going there for 20 years, some even more. How they can close it, I don’t know.

This has to be done in an ongoing process – do not accept any more people and then gradually discontinue use.

My thought is for the staff.

There was not much commendation made to the staff and how wonderfully they have managed.

Some of them have been there for many, many years and this is going to cause a lot of distress and problems for them.

It makes me wonder how this is going to be coped with as it is going to cause upset to so many people.

One gentleman stood up and said his mother is 91 and this is what she lived for, going to the centre and meeting her friends.

He was told she could meet friends in other places but when you are that age, you do not want to have to make new friends.

These people do not want to go to bingo or clubs.

I actually run a friendship group at St Stephen’s Church, in Copeland Road, but if we extend our services, how would we be funded?

There is the problem of how people would get there and the expense of that.

If they must do build these new places, they should do it over a longer period of time.

Hilda Griffiths, Fraser Road, Walthamstow.

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