A proposal to close a much-loved adult day centre in Knutsford would deprive people of their friends and is 'disability discrimination', a campaigner claimed.

Cheshire East is considering proposals to close the Stanley Centre, which caters for adults with learning disabilities, to save £229,000.

But Charlotte Peters Rock, who pleaded with councillors at the recent corporate policy meeting to re-think the plans, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service this was tantamount to disability discrimination, arguing the centre and its services should instead be expanded.

Speaking after the meeting, Mrs Peters Rock told the LDRS: "Where wrongs are done against the learning and other disabled, it becomes disability discrimination to deprive them of their settled existence, their friends and their outings to work."

During the meeting the Knutsford campaigner had asked councillors whether it could be right to consider closing a centre which benefited so many vulnerable people, to make a saving the equivalent of one high earner's wage.

She said when the community objected to the closure of the centre in 2011 what remained open 'became severely marred by the removal of many of the opportunities which had taken place there'.

The council's mid-term financial strategy (budget) states: "It is proposed that as part of the review of the learning disability service offer, and consistent with the strategy to move away from buildings-based care, the service at the Stanley Centre is decommissioned. This will not affect individuals' rights or access to appropriate day opportunities."

Mrs Peters Rock told the committee: "It is interesting that the council took a full review of day services right in the middle of the pandemic, agreeing its strategy in November 2021. Wasn't the place shut then? What happened to the usual attendees? Was any provision made?

"It seems to me the plan to 'remove building-based services' leaves the possibility of no services at all, unless there is a plan to put people in a field? Should any services be supplied, possibly by a commercial entity, then surely they would be provided within a building. Wouldn't that make them building-based?"

And she was critical of the council paying out money to mothball vacant buildings it owns – especially Bexton Court, a former day care centre in Knutsford which closed in 2010.

"This council pays for commercial care services, across the board, where social care buildings were previously purpose built and council-run and the profits of economy of care went back into council funds," said Mrs Peters Rock.

"Counter-productively, now it casts its electorate-in-need upon the whim of profit-based companies and pays £20,000 per year to keep Bexton Court shut. Is that good housekeeping?"

Conservative group leader Janet Clowes (Wybunbury) who had asked at the adults and health committee for a re-think on proposals to close the Stanley Centre, repeated the call at the corporate policy meeting.

Cllr Clowes said that, in 2020, the Tories put forward capital addendum items to use Bexton Court for the purpose of extra care and facilitated living for people with learning disabilities, the idea being that improved facilities would be incorporated for Stanley House on the ground floor of that new facility.

She said the addendum items had been removed.

The budget will be decided at the full council meeting on February 22.

If the budget is approved in total, a full consultation will be held with people who use the services at the Stanley Centre.