Guardian News
Pressure group KAFKA to discuss petition at Cheshire East Council meeting
3:10pm Wednesday 22nd February 2012
A PETITION collected by campaigners fighting to ensure health services remain in Knutsford is to be discussed by the borough authority this week.
KAFKA (Knutsford Area For Knutsford Action) presented the petition, which included 6,517 names, to Cheshire East Mayor Clr Roger West before a council meeting in December 2011.
The group was created in September that year after the authority revealed its consultation into the provision of adult day care in east Cheshire, which threatened the future of Stanley Centre and Bexton Court.
Bexton Court has been shut since autumn 2010, along with the East Cheshire NHS Trust operated Tatton Ward.
Councillors will now discuss the wealth of feeling drawn from the petition at the full council meeting of Cheshire East tomorrow (Thursday, February 23) at Congleton Town Hall from 1.30pm.
Charlotte Peters-Rock, KAFKA member, told the Guardian public meetings will be held if the townsfolk opinion is not taken into account.
She said: “So far Cheshire East has told us 13 people have had to go into long-term care since Bexton Court closed. Their carers and family are having to travel further away from the town.”
Charlotte added the group’s plan was to pressure the Central and Eastern Cheshire PCT after it published its plans for a medical centre in the town.
She said: “The Durrow report has been a waste of public money and we believe if a new medical centre is to be built in Knutsford it should be at the War Memorial hospital on Northwich Road.”
The council is hoping to produce the report into the Stanley Centre and Bexton Court consultation at its cabinet meeting in March.