Age Concern centres are not closing

ALL Active Age clubs will remain open despite the threatened closures that have created uproar among the borough s elderly people. Leader of the council, Cllr Liam Smith, guaranteed that none of the threatened closures of the Active Age clubs run by Age C

ALL Active Age clubs will remain open despite the threatened closures that have created uproar among the borough's elderly people.

Leader of the council, Cllr Liam Smith, guaranteed that none of the threatened closures of the Active Age clubs run by Age Concern would go ahead.

He said: "As leader of the council I will not allow any of those centres to be closed under my watch.

"I'm very disappointed with the way in which they have used older people as blanket shields to hide that they are a business.

"We will not loose any of those centres. This is a guarantee."

The motion to support older people in the borough was put forward by Labour Cllr, Linda Reason, and came three weeks after the Post reported that the charity was going to close down activities in seven centres across the borough.

Age Concern said they had been hit by the credit crunch, could no longer cover rent and staff costs and that the council had reduced its subsidies.

Cllr Denyer told the meeting that although Age Concern had told club members that the council did not pay for anything, it did in fact pay the rent for the facilities.

Cllr McCarthy said he would rather look for someone else, who wanted to look after the clubs, to take over.

Assembly members condemned the actions of Age Concern in the borough and vowed to support OAPs.

The motion was carried unanimously by all 44 members.