Residents upset as Sutton and Cheam MP cancels home meeting

Residents at Crownbourne Court, in St Nicholas Way, were outraged earlier this year when it was announced their on-site care team were being made redundant to be replaced by agency staff.

That meeting with Mr Burstow was arranged for June 24, so residents could voice concerns which had arisen since the changes were implemented.

Problems to be raised at the meeting included a reduction in resident’s allocated care time and concerns were also going to be raised about the security risk of having so many different care workers having access codes for the facility.

But the meeting was cancelled after Sutton Council advised the Sutton and Cheam MP not to attend the meeting on safety grounds.

A spokesman for Sutton Council said: “The original purpose of the meeting was for residents of Crownbourne Court to talk to their local MP.

"But it became apparent that it was being turned into a public meeting with people from across the borough being invited to meet in the residents’ lounge, without their permission which would be inappropriate and potentially unsafe.

"The lounge is a part of people’s homes not a public meeting hall.”

Mr Burstow said: "I find it a great shame that Dr Monick decided to play politics with other resident’s lives at Crownbourne Court, meaning we had to cancel what I had hoped would be a very productive meeting.

”After the Council cancelled the meeting I offered residents at Crownbourne Court the opportunity to either come to one of my surgeries or arrange for me to visit their homes on an individual basis.”

Stanley Monick said in response: “I think that's absolutely disgusting.

"I was not attempting to play politics at all, he is the one playing poltics by diminishing any real protest against his government's neo-liberal policies.

"I wanted to give the maximum voice to those who have been most seriously affected by the severed degradation in the provision of their care."