Lancashire County Council Are Proposing to Axe Free Accessible Disabled & Elderly People’s Day Centre Transport!

My son, John, is severely disabled - he is a wheelchair user with severe physical & learning disabilities. He has Hydrocephalus (water on the brain), Cerebral Palsy & Epilepsy. He attends a day centre 5 days a week where he interacts socially with his friends & learns everyday life & support skills aimed at giving him a more independent life as well as helping him access the community.

He currently, along with nearly 400 other people with learning disabilities and many others with physical disabilities and the elderly too, uses Lancashire Council's in house wheelchair accessible transport to pick him up from home & take him to his day centre & return him home each afternoon. This provides a safe & accessible means of transport for him, with trained drivers & qualified personal assistants/escorts without which he cannot be transported.

Lancs County Council are proposing to axe this in house transport completely on 31st August 2016 & are saying they will "signpost" people to other forms of transport such as taxis & buses etc. This they will have to pay for themselves. They are providing no assurances that this will meet the needs of current users of the service. Many users, such as my son, cannot use public transport on their own & need wheelchair accessible vehicles and the escort service for their safety. This is all completely at threat now as Lancs Council want to stop this service completely & hope that some form of service can be provided by private operators.

This will put unbearable pressure on the families & carers of disabled & elderly people, to provide this service themselves. Often at risk of their own health & employment. Carers & families already save society billions of pounds by the care they already provide. The transport to day centres allows them freedom for a little while and enables many to work, which would not be possible without the support of this daily transport service. At worst it will stop people being able to access their community completely, leave people vegetating at home & return us to a Victorian type of society where disabled people are neither seen nor heard.

Also, there are the excellent drivers, PA's and escorts who will be losing their employment. Many have given years of wonderful & caring service & look upon this as more than a job

Lancs Council say they will protect the most Vulnerable. Yet this policy flies directly in the face of that promise, so I'm calling on Jennifer Mein & all at Lancs Council to stop this proposed cut now. The Severely Disabled are already the most badly affected by the constant Austerity agenda of this Government.

This is a relatively small budget, and by cutting this service it will have a disproportionately detrimental effect on some of the most vulnerable in the community, the learning & Physically disabled as well as the elderly. So please Mrs Mein & all at Lancs County Council, show some compassion to my son and many hundreds of others like him & to the families, carers & employee's too. Save this vital service now, many can't cope without it.