Reform UK closing care homes in money-saving exercise would be 'unconscionable'

Opposition leaders say Reform UK have already decided that the care facilities will close in Lancashire - but those in power at County Hall deny this

Hello and welcome to The Lancashire Lead.

The news that 10 elderly care facilities could close under Reform UK cost-saving plans has been met with backlash - with a number of petitions set up supporting the affected sites.

Reform UK insist no decision has been made and have slammed those who suggest that is the case. But their opposition at Progressive Lancashire challenged on this, stating the authority has already drawn up its timetable for when residents, some over the age of 100, could be moved out of the facilities.

A public consultation will take place which Reform UK says it will listen to before any decision is made. But campaigners and concerned families believe that decision has, in fact, already been made.

Against the backdrop of MPs telling The Lancashire Lead that the authority needs to think again, and campaigners in the room holding up signs in support of the sites, the issue was debated at length this week.

We’ve reported extensively on the topic for you below for this weekend’s edition. In-depth journalism isn’t easy to do - please consider taking a paid subscription so we can continue bringing you our award-winning journalism.

Lancashire briefing

🏥 A newly-elected councillor has resigned from his job as a mental health nurse after he alleged NHS bosses “discriminated” against him because he represents Reform UK. Daniel Matchett was one of 53 Reform UK candidates elected to Lancashire County Council in this year’s local elections.

The year before, he stood as the party’s candidate for Rossendale and Darwen in the General Election, and came third with 9,695 votes behind the winning candidate, Labour’s Andy MacNae with 18,247 votes, and the sitting MP Jake Berry with 12,619 votes. It was in the run-up to the 2024 General Election when Daniel claims his employer, Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust, voiced concerns about his candidacy. The full story here.

🍺 A heritage group is accusing the city council of ‘wilful neglect’ after it looks set to pursue the full demolition of a former city centre pub once again. What was the Tithebarn, which has been owned by Preston City Council for near a decade, had previously been due to see part of the structure saved after a re-think by councillors in the summer. It’s fair to say the row has now turned very spiky. The latest from Blog Preston here.

👚 A Heysham resident is encouraging women to attend their routine breast cancer screening appointments after her own diagnosis. Vicki Edwards was 54 when she received the news that she had primary breast cancer in 2024 while attending her second routine mammogram. “I had no symptoms at all, and I was in perfect health,” said Vicki, who runs Mossgate Day Nursery in Heysham. Full story here from the Lancaster Guardian.

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Reform UK accused of planning for closure of care homes before public consultation

Campaigners show Save Favordale signs as Cllr Graham Dalton speaks

By Paul Faulkner and Luke Beardsworth

Reform UK’s leaders at Lancashire County Council have insisted that the futures of 10 elderly care facilities have not yet been decided – but they have been accused of making up its mind to close them before a public consultation has taken place.

The authority’s cabinet voted at a meeting this week to consider the “reprovision” of the services offered by five of its residential homes and five day centres – with the buildings they operate from deemed to be in “significantly poor condition”.

The closures of some or all of the sites – one of which is understood to be home to a 106-year-old woman – could be on the cards next year, once an eight-week consultation has been carried out.

The care homes – Favordale (Colne), Grove House (Adlington), Milbanke (Kirkham), Thornton House (Thornton Cleveleys) and Woodlands (Clayton-le-Moors) – have a combined capacity to accommodate 229 people, roughly 45 at each location.

Meanwhile, the day centres – Byron View (Colne, attached to Favordale), Derby Centre (Ormskirk), Milbanke Day Centre (Kirkham, attached to Milbanke care home), Teal Close, (Thornton Cleveleys, attached to Thornton House) and Vale View (Lancaster) – provide support to older people during daytime hours, including those in the early stages of dementia.

Residents and users of the under-threat services were advised by the Reform UK-run county council of the process it was planning to set in motion before details were released ahead of the cabinet gathering.

A letter reassured them that “no decisions have been made at this stage” – and that responses to the consultation would be “carefully considered”.

However, the move has prompted petitions to ‘save’ at least three of the facilities – and claims from some opposition councillors that the fate of the services has already been determined.

Against that backdrop, cabinet member for adult social care Graham Dalton condemned what he claimed was people being “stirred up” by politicians and having their emotions “brought to a fever pitch”.

He said one Reform councillor had received a menacing voicemail which had “threatened him with violence” over the future of the Favordale home, based on “facts that aren’t true”.

When an observer in the audience apparently muttered “liar”, County Cllr Dalton said: “Lies come from…being told something is going to happen before a decision has been made… before the officers who are qualified, professional [and] capable…of looking at a…care home [or] looking at a day centre and saying, ‘This is good enough’ or ‘This isn’t good enough’, ‘This needs to change’ or ‘This needs fixing’ [have done so].”

However, Azhar Ali – leader of the Progressive Lancashire opposition alliance of independent and Green Party county councillors – said the authority had signalled its intentions for the services by drawing up a “timetable” for what would happen if they were to shut.

Referencing a business case for the review that has now been launched, County Cllr Ali noted that a window to “facilitate” the movement of residents to new homes was set to open on 9th February, 2026, and run through until next November.

He said: “That’s a few months away. So there is a timetable for the whole process, but we’re being told – like we’re some sort of lemons – that there is no programme for closure.

“But if there’s no programme for closure, you don’t put a timetable in which sets out potential closure of these places – so that does not give confidence to the residents…and their families [as to] what might or might not happen.”

County Cllr Ali also claimed that the process was being conducted “the wrong way round”.

He said that the review should have been assessed by the relevant county council scrutiny committee first, with that cross-party group being provided with all of the relevant information – including what it would cost to bring the buildings up to standard or even replace them.

The cabinet would then be able to make an “informed” decision based on the scrutiny feedback, he explained – adding that the stakes for those directly affected were high.

“For some [residents] who may have dementia or severe disabilities or ill health…that shift…to [living] somewhere else could cost them their lives – that change is not something we should [under]estimate” County Cllr Ali said.

However, County Cllr Dalton said he would “flip” that proposition and ask: “What happens if somebody dies because they’re wound up by all this scaremongering and something [then] doesn’t happen to that home?

“Does that lie on the councillors that have gone out and told people their jobs are going, their homes are closing, [that] they’re going to be kicked out?”

He also rejected the suggestion that there had been any “pre-judgement” of what should happen to the facilities – and rubbished the idea that the matter should have first gone before a scrutiny committee, because “there’s nothing to scrutinise”.

“We do the review, then they know what we’re looking at [and] then we know what has to change,” County Cllr Dalton said.

County council leader Stephen Atkinson said the scrutiny system could “feed into the decision” even after the consultation had begun – meaning that there was no need to delay the process.

Deputy Progressive Lancashire group leader Gina Dowding said while she was “appalled” to hear of threats being made against any councillor, there was now “a lack of trust” with service users and residents because of what had been put in the public domain before the consultation had even begun.

“It certainly does look as though the outcome of any review has already been decided.

You can say now until you’re blue in the face that’s not the case – [but] the evidence that we have in front of us makes it look that way,” County Cllr Dowding said.