Campaigners against the closure of The Spinney Care Home in Brimington have accused the Conservative-leadership at Derbyshire County Council of continuing with plans to close the home, despite supposedly U-turning on the closure following a public consultation.

Derbyshire County Council announced proposals last year to close seven local authority run care homes in Derbyshire, including The Spinney. A public outcry led to demonstrations against the closures and a petition signed by hundreds of angry residents. Just a few weeks ago the County Council said they were cancelling the closure plans and stated that they were now “proposing to develop local alternatives to the homes requiring major work or to invest in significant repairs.”

However, it has now come to light that the Council are blocking The Spinney Care Home from accepting long-term residents and have stated that only emergency repairs will be completed.

Toby Perkins, MP for Chesterfield, said “The County Council were clearly shocked at the strength of the outcry against their proposed closures of these homes and are clearly worried about the election next year. This feels like a cynical attempt to mislead the public and continue with their plans to wind down services at The Spinney to make it easier to close in the future.

The public are aren’t stupid and know when the wool is being pulled over their eyes. Staff at the Spinney are still anxious about their jobs, and residents and their families are again worried about the future of the home.”

Toby has written to Cllr Barry Lewis to request an explanation and to ask whether all seven of the homes originally proposed for closure are being prevented from taking on long-term residents and to request full details of any plans to improve current facilities, or build new ones.

Toby added, “The Spinney is half empty and being prevented from working to its full potential. We need the County Council to provide justification for why they are preventing The Spinney from taking on long term residents or do the improvements needed, otherwise it will just confirm that they were lying about cancelling the closure plans.”