We, the undersigned call on members of the Labour Party administration of Reading Borough Council to halt planned cuts to services for tenants living in Council-owned and managed Sheltered Housing accomodation in Reading.

The properties affected are as follows:-

Christchurch Court

Bristow Court

Tyrrell Court

St Stephen’s Court

Weirside

Woodlands

Trinity

Corwen Road

Liebenrood Road

Durham Close

635 people aged 60+ currently live in Sheltered Housing managed by Reading Borough Council.  Many are on low or fixed-incomes.

Tenants living in Sheltered Housing and their families rely on Reading Borough Council for a range of services including out of hours support.

We believe these vulneable tenants have a right to expect high-quality care and support and should not be targetted in this way.

The Council is currently consulting people on the service. Please submit your views here http://www.reading.gov.uk/consultations/2011consultations/General.asp?id=SX9452-A785E497

The Sheltered Housing Services Consultation asks for views on the current service and the proposed changes at 10 of the Council's sheltered housing schemes.

The proposals include:

• changes to the amount of support time provided
• changes to the Sheltered Housing Officer's working week
• the promotion of activities across all the schemes
• opening up some of the schemes to people under the retirement age who need specialist housing support
• views on the current night service

The main driver behind this consultation is not to improve services for tenants but to save money.

The Council document accompanying the consultation states:

'We have taken into account that we spend a large amount of money on support for older people in sheltered housing.  Currently £721,860 is spent on support for 635 tenants in 21 sheltered housing schemes across Reading.  However, sheltered housing tenants represent only 3.5% of the total population of older people in Reading. '

 You can also download and complete the questionnaire below and this should be returned by Friday 16 December 2011.

We call on Reading Labour and Green Party councillors to rethink this decision which risks causing harm to some of Reading's most vulnerable residents.

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