We are residents of the neighborhood of Ascot Gardens, Widnes. Our homes, sit adjacent to a property that stands to be potentially converted into a facility for care-experienced children or unaccompanied asylum seekers. Our concern for the adverse impact this transformation may have on our peaceful community compels us to address this issue.

While there may be a need for care institutions, placing this facility in a tightly-knit residential space poses significant concerns. Our area would face increased noise, traffic, and disturbance, disrupting our daily lives, and unsettling the harmony of the community. 

According to specialists, successful operation of care homes requires very specific building structures and surrounding environments. The Royal Institute of British Architects notes that a care home ideally should be built afresh, or adapted from a building which has suitable features, to ensure a homely, safe and therapeutic environment. The house in Ascot Gardens being a residential home, is likely far from this ideal.

Every year care institutions are required to declare to OFSTED incidents that they think are ‘serious’. Last year alone there were over 30,000 of these declared incidents. A quarter of which involved Police attendance, including for where a resident has committed a crime but also where a child has gone missing, has been a victim of sexual or criminal exploitation or another crime, or has disclosed a historic safeguarding concern. The residents of Ascot Gardens do not deserve this safeguarding risk being imposed on them.

This is not about denying shelter to the needy. This is about protecting a community’s quality of life that we, as citizens, have a right to maintain. By redirecting the creation of a care institute to more suitable, thoughtfully selected areas in Widnes, we safeguard communal peace and meet the requiring criteria for an effective care home.

Let us unite and uphold the stability, and safety of Ascot Gardens. Please sign this petition to stop the conversion of this property into a care institute.