Bryneithin Care Home consultation was ‘illegal’

THE future of a residential care home threatened with closure could be decided next month. The report by Vale of Glamorgan social services chiefs follows a three-month consultation on Bryneithin home, which cares for people with dementia.

But campaigners fighting to keep the Dinas Powys home open have called for the consultation to be repeated, claiming the original exercise did not comply with legislation.

Sylvia Bowen, whose mother is a resident at the home, said: “We are waiting for them to admit that the consultation was illegal and should be done again. It was flawed in that it failed to properly involve all interested parties.

“It will be a worrying Easter holiday for us. The stress and the worry is terrible and the longer it goes on the worse it gets.”

Dr Ian Johnson, Plaid Cymru’s parliamentary candidate for the Vale of Glamorgan said he was worried about the validity of the public consultation after it came to light that on-line consultation papers had been taken down before the end of the March deadline.

He said: “I went to the Vale of Glamorgan website in the early afternoon of the final day of the consultation – March 31 – and found that the link to the consultation had ‘expired’.

“There are many people who feel that the consultation is a sham which has only one answer: the closure of Bryneithin.

“The Alzheimer’s Society expects an increase of 35% in the number of dementia sufferers over the next 20 years, meaning that top class facilities are vital and we shouldn’t be closing them lightly.”

A council spokesman said chief executive John Maitland Evans had referred the concerns about the consultation to Phil Evans, director of social services, who will respond by letter.

He said the concerns would also be added to the representations that had already been made as part of the public consultation.

An Easter Monday tea party will be held at Bryneithin from 4.30pm.