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Blow for care home campaign
Lawyers say they can’t stop closure
THE campaign to save an old people’s home in Marylebone appears to have ended after solicitors admitted they were powerless to prevent its closure.
Saimo Chahal of Bindman’s Solicitors, who won the 2006 Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year award, wrote to residents of Macintosh House in Beaumont Street this week advising them to seek alternative accommodation.
The news has crushed hopes that the council’s decision to decommission the block could be challenged in law.
The 11 remaining residents, including a 96-year-old war veteran, had used some of their savings to pay for expensive legal consultation.
They believed a report, made by PRP Architects in 2002 that informed the decision to decommission Macintosh House, was inaccurate.
The council last month moved to decommission the block and intends to sell the lease back to landlords Howard de Walden for £1 million.
The money has been ring-fenced for improving other sheltered housing blocks in Westminster.
The decision reneged on repeated assurances from the council that no resident would be forced to leave their home.
The once 28-strong community of Macintosh House were each offered £3,639 to pack their bags and leave.
Eleven residents say they love their home and will not go.
Their plight was raised on Wednesday at a council meeting by opposition Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg.
He said: “What sort of Council is it that forces 96-year-old Charles Lawrence out of his home, a man who joined the RAF in 1939 and fought for his country in the African desert during the Second World War, where he lost much of hearing?
“Why is the council prepared to forget the very people who fought to secure our liberty and freedom and who want nothing more than to live out their twilight years in familiar surroundings with their friends?
“What sort of council is that forces hard-pressed pensioners to use their savings to get legal representation in order to fight for their homes?
“So, it’s down to the lawyers to decide whether Mr and Mrs Lawrence and their elderly neighbours can live the remaining years of their lives in their homes.”
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