A DAY centre for the elderly will be axed – despite pleas to save it from service users, carers and union officials.

Leading councillors have tonight decided to close Crownfield Day Centre, in Crownfield Road, Leytonstone.

The centre provides care and support to elderly people who want to continue living at home. It specialises in dementia care and arranges a wide range of activities including outings and shopping trips.

But councillors have decided to close the facility to meet new government guidelines for the “personalisation” of services.

Instead of being referred to Crownfield Day Centre by the council, patients will receive funding enabling them to choose care and activity sessions in other public or voluntary sector buildings throughout the borough.

Dementia services will be relocated to a new centre in Essex Hall, Billet Road.

A total of 57 out of 77 users have already left the day centre for other care providers under the scheme, but many of the remaining 20 are angry at being forced out.

Before tonight's meeting a demonstration against the closure was held on the steps of the town hall.

Susan Ayres, said her mother Winifred Phillips, who uses the centre, has been a lot happier since being at Crownfield.

She said: “Since she has been there she has not forgotten to take her tablets.

“But since this has all happened she seems to have gone backwards, not forwards.”

At the meeting, UNISON Waltham Forest Secretary Dave Knight told councillors that service users had felt misrepresented, as survey findings in the cabinet report said the majority of people preferred alternative care to Crownfield.

Referring to the recent closures of council-run care homes in the borough, Mr Knight said: “Looking at services for elderly people in the round, I am very concerned about what is happening.”

Liz Philips, cabinet member for older people, said that 80 per cent of service users had chosen alternative services, and said the “personalisation agenda” had been a success story.

Labour cabinet member Marie Pye said alternatives to Crownfield should be “real choices” that service users want.

She also raised concerns about accessibility to buildings for people with disabilites and raised fears that community cohesion would be damaged by removing a facility like Crownfield, where people from different backgrounds come together.

Crownfield will close, but councillors requested a report in six months time evaluating the success of the new programme.