Martin Powell-Davies, Lancashire Socialist Party
Lancashire’s Reform council wants to close five council-run care homes and five day centres.
Reform claims that the buildings are out of date. Although, that claim was apparently partly based on out-of-date surveys. But, instead of putting in the investment needed to improve services, Reform is using this as an excuse to try and shut them down.
Closure puts hundreds of jobs at risk. Users and residents have a right to the support they need.
Some will argue that residents should be “living in their own homes”, with ‘community support’, instead of care homes. But that means condemning service users to a miserable unsupported existence, or homelessness. A decision that could literally mean death for some elderly users.
Some will argue that the private sector should provide provision, instead of councils, supposedly saving £4 million. But everyone knows what that means – privatisation for profit, meaning worse services for local people, worse pay and conditions for staff. And councils still needing to spend millions in extortionate fees charged by the profiteers.
Unison trade union has pointed out that Reform council cabinet lead on adult social care, Graham Dalton, owns a private care company. Councillors have told Unison that private firms are already knocking at the door.
But pressure is building on the council. Reform now says it is still considering whether to go ahead with the closures or not. We are marching against the closures on 17 January in Preston.
Reform pretence as ‘anti-establishment’ is being exposed. Reform supporters will soon start to realise that Farage and Co.’s promises to “cut waste” and “make efficiency savings”, actually means cutting services that working-class communities need.
Of course, it isn’t just Reform. Labour, Tories, and all the austerity parties, wherever they are in charge of councils, are making similar decisions in budget meetings over the next few months. The pressure needs to be put on all these councillors to reverse cuts, through public campaigning and local authority unions taking strike action.
Reform’s budget will be considered by a council committee and cabinet in January and February, before a full council meeting on 26 February for the budget. So time for action is short.
The threat to care homes and day centres is the tip of the iceberg. The council says it needs savings of “£100 million over the next three years”. On top, £43 million was built into the 2026-27 budget by the previous Tory council.
These further cuts being ‘consulted’ on include £10.1 million in highways and transport, £4.7 million in waste management, and £7 million from other ‘service reviews’. These surely can only mean worse roads, higher car parking costs, and cuts to waste collection and other vital council services.
Instead of making even more cuts, we need councillors who will lead a mass campaign for proper government funding for our local services. A council prepared to fight for the working class could use its borrowing powers and reserves to set a legal no-cuts ‘balanced budget’ that meets the needs of our communities, then launches a mass campaign to demand the money to pay for it from central government. That is the policy of the trade unions representing council workers.
Your Party founding conference – by a majority of over 90% – called for open public conferences to be organised, bringing together representatives of trade unions, community organisations, socialist parties, and others, to draw up a no-cuts ‘people’s’ budget’, based on local community needs, not Keir Starmer’s continued austerity.
We call on trade unions, campaign groups, and anyone opposing Reform’s cuts in Lancashire to come together and call a ‘people’s’ budget’ conference, and demand ‘no cuts’.
