The Borough Council’s acted to allay fears over cuts to its services to tenants who live in sheltered housing across the borough.

Its move comes days after QLocal's Roger Blaxall was contacted by an anxious Ormskirk pensioner who said that a badly worded Council letter confused quite a few folk who read it.





Yesterday afternoon, the Council PR office released this statement: “West Lancashire Borough Council will continue to provide a sheltered service to tenants in the Borough despite losing Supporting People funding from Lancashire County Council.

“This loss of funding affects 32 providers of sheltered accommodation in the county, and some sheltered providers who have lost similar funding have decided they will no longer provide such a service.

“The Borough Council has planned for the potential workforce changes brought about as a consequence of this reduction in funding, and has recruited on a temporary basis and used the Council’s redeployment arrangements. This has resulted in no redundancies of permanent Council staff in this service area.

“Residents have been kept informed of the changes, by both the county and the Borough Council throughout the consultation process and have been given a number of ways to provide feedback or make contact.

“Staff working in the sheltered service have been key in talking to tenants about the changes and are looking forward to providing a customer focused service in the future.

The 24 hour communications system in sheltered accommodation will be upgraded over the next 6 months to enable the Council to provide a more flexible and interactive service for tenants and meet tenants future expectations and the needs of the service.”

*The Council can also arrange for someone to speak to tenants individually should they still have any concerns. In the first instance tenants should speak to their support officer or can contact emma.routledge@westlancs.gov.uk , tel. 01695 585216.