I WRITE with reference to the article in the Bucks Free Press on July 16 regarding the planned closure of Seeleys House in Beaconsfield.

This is part of the ‘Transforming Day Services’ consultation currently doing the rounds among the disabled, elderly and their carers and was previously referred to in an article in your newspaper on June 4 regarding the intended closure of the vast majority of the day care centre buildings.

This policy is practically identical to a discredited national policy from the early 1990s called ‘Care in the Community’.

That entailed resettling the mentally ill from ‘institutionalised structures’ and placing them in specially-designed homes with full support, allowing the community interaction to assist in their ‘rehabilitation’. Great theory but it did not happen that way.

The grand old buildings (or the sites) which were hospitals were sold on to developers and the mentally ill got the short end of the stick, very often left to their own devices on the streets, and we have seen the results down through the years.

Now we have Mr Trevor Boyd, Acting Strategic Director, along with Mr David Jones, ‘Social Services Bosses at BCC’, wanting to put the care cases into a cafe type culture to bring them “closer to the community”.

This language in your report is practically straight from the ‘Care in the Community’ template.

Do the elderly need this type of verbal rubbish from a highly paid council official whose primary consideration is cost savings?

Mr Boyd states that it is too early to say which organisations would staff the new hubs and also too early to say how the intended refurbishment will be funded.

May I suggest that if the care organisations and charities, along with the rest of us who are carers, allow this to proceed then it will be too late for those we care for.

Mr Jerry Morley, Wedgwood Drive, Hughenden Valley