Madam,This is a copy of a letter I have sent to my MP
Jesse Norman.
I wonder if you could spare a few minutes to
consider this problem, those of us who are disabled and
have Lifestyle support workers have recently been told
that from the end of October, we can no longer be taken
out anywhere except for medical appointments and to do
banking.
Furthermore we have been informed that those of us
in wheelchairs cannot be taken out at all .
I am in my 91st year and obviously not as physically
fit as I would like to be and am also totally blind. Since
2009 I have enjoyed a weekly outing to town for a little
shopping and now wonder whether I have to stay inside
these four walls for the rest of my days?
I write to you on behalf of all disabled people in this
predicament, I am willing to accept the cut in hours but
this is a step too far! Perhaps you would be able to use
your influence to put some pressure on the council to try
and get these decisions reversed?
Name and address supplied
Editor's note: Herefordshire Lifestyles is an organisation
that provides support to hundreds of people. It is funded
by central government and managed by Herefordshire
Council.
Unfortunately when the coalition government announced
spending cuts in May, Herefordshire Lifestyles, which is
part of the Supported People Service, was informed that
there would be significants cuts to their funding.
Richard Kelly, Executive Director of Herefordshire
Lifestyles issued the following statement in July. "It is with
reluctance that I have to announce that we are reducing
our level of service delivery with immediate effect. Sadly
we are all aware of the current publicity, nationally and
locally, concerning impending public sector spending
cuts. It is such funding on which we rely for most of our
income and we have been expecting difficulties since the
start of the current financial year.
"We have recently been notified that our funding for the
current financial year has been reduced and we are
therefore planning to immediately cut delivery of our
Supporting People funded service by approximately 25%.
"This follows from a reduction in the funding for this
programme across Herefordshire and we will be working
closely with Herefordshire Council to prioritise the use of
our remaining budget and to ensure that the effect on
participants is minimised, wherever possible. We
recognise and understand the impact that this may have
for some people and will be doing everything in our
power to ensure that users of our service are signposted
to other appropriate services .