Jean Cross receives her guests in her modest house in the southern suburbs of Birmingham, not far from the Cadbury chocolate factory and the university campus of England’s second city (101 councilors for 1.15 million inhabitants). Wearing a t-shirt “Save Harborne Day Centre”This energetic sexagenarian has fully committed herself to a campaign to save the day center for disabled adults that her brother, Robert, 62, a quadriplegic, has been attending for forty-three years.
On 15 October, Birmingham City Council announced its permanent closure on 31 March 2025, along with three other of the borough’s nine adult centres. “ Robert goes downtown from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., those are my only rest hours. He has all his habits at Harborne, like dozens of other patients, all severely disabled. explain mme Cross.
The city proposes distributing patients to one of the five centers that remain open. “The time on specialized transport will be considerably longer, Robert cannot spend hours every day on the bus”worries his sister. At the end of October, Mme Cruz does not give up: “I will fight until the end. I have nothing to lose. » He plans to attend the town hall at the beginning of November to continue denouncing the closure of a vital center for its users, which costs half a million pounds sterling a year (about 600,000 euros) to operate.. “It’s much cheaper than home care or wasting Oracle software.” sighs this mother.
21% increase in local taxes
In September 2023, Birmingham filed for bankruptcy after a serious blunder in its finances related to the failed adoption of Oracle payroll software, which cost at least £100 million. The council, with a Labor majority, also proved unable to anticipate a dispute over equal pay initiated by thousands of its employees and had to make a provision of £700 million in its accounts to deal with it. As English law requires communities to balance their books, at the end of 2023 the city came under the supervision of “commissioners”, unelected experts, appointed by Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government. In March, under their pressure, the city approved a 21% increase in council tax, the elimination of 600 council jobs and more than £300 million in savings over two years – with deep cuts as a result. in their social spending. services.
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