Users, carers in plea to save Alford respite centre from axe

Campaigners fighting the closure of a respite centre which offers short breaks for people with physical disabilities pleaded for the facility to be given a reprieve yesterday.

About 30 users, their carers and staff of Achbuie at Alford attended a meeting in Aberdeen to discuss the plans.

The centre – which provides one to two-week stays for road-accident victims and people with conditions such as Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis – is due to shut next month when vital funding is withdrawn. Achbuie receives the bulk of its funding from Aberdeenshire Council, although most users live elsewhere. The authority recoups money from other councils, but both Moray and Aberdeen City have said they no longer want to buy places.

Regular user Philip Main – a former Royal Military policeman who was left quadriplegic after an IRA bomb blast in 1994 – helped to organise the meeting and a petition against the plans.

Mr Main, 39, of Bruce Walk, Aberdeen, said: “I personally have been humbled by the amount of support that we have had in the past two or three weeks. We have had more than 2,240 paper petition signatures, and online we have had about 616 from across the whole globe – even from the front line of Afghanistan. That’s how far these petitions have gone.” Mr Main said the “homely” centre was vital to the well-being of himself, his carer and his elderly parents.

And he said Rosewell House, a residential care home which Aberdeen City Council proposed as an alternative to users living in its catchment area, was “not a patch” on Achbuie and he did not want to stay there.

Users claimed they were not consulted about the plans to shut Achbuie, and said if the numbers had been falling it was because it had not been promoted enough. Some said that they would be willing to pay more for their stays to keep it open.

North-east SNP MSP Maureen Watt, who attended the meeting, said she would write to both Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City councils with her concerns about the issue. A spokeswoman for Aberdeenshire Council said: “A relatively small number of people use the facility from the Aberdeenshire area and we are working with these individuals and their carers to plan alternative respite breaks.”

A spokeswoman for Aberdeen City Council said all Achbuie users living in its catchment area were invited to a meeting to discuss their options at Rosewell House on October 28. She added that the council would be happy to meet people who did not attend individually to consider their needs.