Madam,

For the last five years, there has been a one-hour vigil on Park Avenue, in Aberystwyth, every Saturday afternoon.

The initial aim was to stop Ceredigion County Council closing and demolishing the purpose-built Park Avenue Day Centre to make way for yet more supermarkets.

The Day Centre had provided day care and other services for older people, and respite for their carers, for over 30 years.

After the council closed the day centre in 2012, the facility was moved to the basement of the old Town Hall. It had few of the services and facilities provided previously and the basement room was considerably smaller than its multi-roomed predecessor so that the numbers attending and the time they could spend there was severely restricted. Only those who fell into certain stringent categories could attend.

The Day Centre Group had hoped that the 2012 incoming county council would overturn some of the decisions taken by its predecessor. At this point, there was still a faint hope that the new council might negotiate with the developers to leave the day centre as an integral part of the new development or persuade them to build a like-for-like replacement.

It quickly became clear that this was not going to happen because the council was not willing to cover the cost of running the kind of day centre they had had previously. This is in an age of rising numbers of older people who are living longer and needing help in their later years.

In this situation the group felt that it should continue with the vigil in order to remind everyone of what had been lost and to draw attention to the decisions made by the county council in relation to the care of older people in the county. We have never been directly anti-Tesco.

We are now planning to look at the whole issue of the care of older people in Ceredigion. The day centres went first but now council-run care homes are being closed and sold off by the county council to the private sector.

The way forward appears to be in the direction of extra care homes where residents live in a form of sheltered accommodation in their own flats but with care provided if they need it. Unfortunately, there is only one of these so far in Ceredigion. This is in Cardigan and, although another is planned for Tregaron, there is nothing planned for Aberystwyth, the largest concentration of population in the county.

We think that people should be aware of this situation and that it should not be allowed to continue. Older people needing care should be able to access the kind of care they need.

The members of the vigil are currently taking a short break but will be back in April to remind everyone that care for older people should be an important issue for the county council elections in May.

Yours etc,

Gwenda Williams, on behalf of Save Park Avenue Day Centre Group.

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