Elderly residents in Berkeley voice fears over plans for housing managers (From Gazette Series)

Elderly residents in Berkeley voice fears over plans for housing managers

8:30am Thursday 4th March 2010 in

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ELDERLY residents are scared and worried about the prospect of losing their full-time sheltered housing scheme managers.

Residents of Jenner Court Sheltered Housing Scheme in Berkeley are concerned they could lose their scheme manager after members of Stroud District Council announced a proposal to share out managers who work in schemes with 25 units or less as part of a review into the service.

Jenner Court has 19 units, putting them at risk if the proposal was accepted.

Josie Barnfield, 86, has lived at Jenner Court since her husband died 10 years ago and is extremely worried about the prospect of losing their scheme manager.

"I am worrying about this every day, I never expected this to happen. I love it here at Jenner Court. I am warm, I am comfortable, I am happy, I don’t want that to change," said Mrs Barnfield.

"The whole reason I chose to come here was that someone would be here 24 hours a day if I needed it, that is the whole principle of the scheme. Now they want to take that away."

Another resident Mary Edwards, 73, said: "I have been here three and a half years and I am very happy here, I feel secure for the future – but am I? I don’t know any more and that is worrying."

Mrs Edwards, on behalf of all the residents, asked Berkeley Town Council to write to Stroud District Council to urge them to consider treating Jenner Court as a special case.

Mayor of Berkeley Val Watts said the council supported the residents 100 per cent.

"We are very isolated here in Berkeley so to say scheme managers should be shared is no good because there is no other scheme nearby."

The review has three options for the future of sheltered housing - to keep the status quo, to scrap scheme managers or to retain most scheme managers but for schemes with 25 units or less, of which there are 14, to share. The latter option has been recommended to council. However a fourth option was put forward by members of the United Sheltered Accomodation Panel at a meeting on Tuesday night which asks for 28 of the 29 scheme managers to be retained.

Cllr Debbie Young, cabinet member for housing at Stroud District Council, said the review was undertaken at the request of tenants.

She added: "No decision has yet been made nor will it be made until there has been a full consultation with the relevant parties on all the options, including the fourth option proposed by tenant representatives."