2nd June 2025
Mark Tyson Esq
Dorset Council
County Hall
Dorchester DT1 1XJ
Dear Mark,
Council review of Adult Day Centre Provision – North Dorset
Many thanks to you and Karen Stephens for our recent meeting to discuss the ongoing review and consultation of the provision of Adult Day Centres as they relate to my constituency of North Dorset. You will be more than aware of the high level of anxiety the proposals for Blandford Forum and Shaftesbury have generated in the local community – from users, their carers/families and from the wider populace. You are aware that I have had detailed meetings at both Shaftesbury and Blandford.
I was relieved to hear that the consultation is just that: a consultation rather than, as many feared, a tick box exercise of a fait accompli. I do hope that the Council listens to what my constituents are saying. Please take this letter as my formal submission to the consultation process.
As a former councillor (District and County) and as a former Local Government Minister I know all too well the pressures that local authority budgets are under especially given rising service demand. The easiest way to make savings is to cut the low hanging fruit often from service areas where least organised resistance is expected. The proposal to close both Blandford Forum and Shaftesbury strikes me as being classic cases in point. I appreciate that services need to be kept under review in order to ensure cost effectiveness, value to the Council Tax payer and benefit to the service user. I would caution against too crude a cost comparison between what the Council pays to what the private sector charges. Private sector costs are inclined to rise when councils withdraw from provision leaving the private sector as the sole provider. A casual review of recent developments in the children’s home sector amplifies this point.
I would welcome and support further reform and evolution of Dorset Care as it seems to me that the chains of communication, control and monitoring are not as robust as they could be. From our meeting I understand that not all of the user data was as comprehensive as it could be. That speaks to back-office reform and recalibration rather than the closure scythe being wielded.
The basis presumption of a hub and spoke model with Sturminster Newton being the North Dorset hub is flawed. It is flawed because it fails to recognise or understand the topography, geography and road/public transport connectivity across North Dorset. It is for those reasons that provision and use has already created a hub and spoke model. Shaftesbury serving the north of my constituency (the towns of Shaftesbury, Gillingham and their village hinterlands); Sturminster Newton (the town itself and its surrounding villages) the middle and; Blandford Forum the south (the town itself and its surrounding villages). Those villages already see these three towns as their hub for service and retail. To try to focus Adult Day Centre provision in Sturminster Newton breaks the existing model and creates one which would, for many, be all but impossible to use. To try to create a single hub model is doomed to fail. I have no doubt that users will drop out simply because it is too difficult to access. Such a scenario would clearly have negative effects on the well-being and lives of service users and their families/carers. The health benefits of societal congregation are well understood and documented. Removal of local facilities would again have a negative effect on service users. As one parent told me: ‘it took me six months to persuade them to attend. They now love it and can’t wait to get there. They have made real friends. If it closes, I fear, because we have no car and they hate disruption and change, they will simply return to their bedroom’. That would not be a desirable outcome, but it would be a real one for that family and countless others.
Demography tells us that service demand will rise giving an ageing population, residential growth in North Dorset and the rising trajectory of SEND and therefore the needs of adults when they leave education. North Dorset already feels it is the poor relation as far as the council administration is concerned and to follow through on the plans as consulted upon would compound this. It would leave us perilously dependent on one hub covering circa 380sq miles.
The provision of readily accessible Day Centres must surely take pressure from the wider care budget and service demand. Many parents are aging but, I heard this from my many conversations with them, the Centres allow them to care for their loved one at home with Centre usage providing the respite to allow them to take care of their own health/personal needs, undertake shopping, tidy the home etc. Asking people to make their way from eg. Pimperne to Sturminster Newton, return home and then repeat in order to collect, cancels out this precious time. This existing model works because the existing model works.
You have confirmed that the Blandford centre is freehold owned by Dorset Council and, from my visit, is in good order physically. It is well located with access to the town and has plenty of on-site and on street parking. A useful outside space provides for supervised outdoor activities such as gardening. It would be perverse to close this Centre. Rather, plans should evolve to further exploit this wonderful resource of a well designed and equipped building. Shaftesbury’s Trinity Centre is well loved but its configuration from the footprint of a former Church does not create a bespoke environment which of course has some service provision challenges.
However, it is pivotal to maintain a centre in the north of North Dorset as it serves both Shaftesbury and Gillingham. Gillingham, with its circa 2000 new homes Sustainable Urban Extension, should not be left high and dry in terms of local, accessible Centre provision.
So, my starting point must be that Trinity is retained in order to provide for the needs of north North Dorset. However, and having regard to the above, I understand that the Council is exploring the future use of the former boarding facilities of Shaftesbury School. It may be useful to consider northern provision with this in mind.
Conclusion
The proposals as consulted upon are flawed, unworkable and doomed to fail some of the most vulnerable in my community based as they are on a lack of understanding as to how the North Dorset towns and villages have organised themselves over many years. A mono hub approach located in Sturminster Newton cannot be considered as desirable or workable. I am happy to work with the Council, stakeholders and the wider communities to help drive evolution of service provision (nothing ever stands still) but I am implacably opposed to the closure of the two centres of Blandford Forum and Shaftesbury. The Council must listen. It needs to ditch these plans and, instead of launching a radical consultation on unsuspecting communities, actually work with those communities to futureproof service provision for my constituents.
I am more than happy to meet again to discuss if you think this would be useful. I would be grateful if you could confirm receipt of this letter and that you will accept it as a formal consultation submission. I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours ever,
Simon
SIMON HOARE MP
Member of Parliament for North Dorset