Council faces legal challenge on disabled centre closure

Published on Friday 2 May 2008 23:38

A SCOTS council is facing a landmark legal challenge from a group of disabled people who claim lives could be lost as a result of its service cuts.

Aberdeen City Council is being challenged by clients at the Choices day care centre, which the local authority is planning to close on 2 June to save 370,000 in annual funding costs. The group revealed yesterday they will be raising an action against the council next Tuesday in the Court of Session.

They will be seeking a judicial review of its decision to axe the centre and applying for an interim order to prevent it going ahead next month, claiming the local authority is in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act.

The legal action is regarded as a test case, which could have an impact on other local authorities in Scotland.

It is being spearheaded by Kevin McCahery, 45, a leading Choices campaigner who has suffered from spina bifida since he was born and confined to a wheelchair for the past ten years.

He claims it was the help he received at the centre that stopped him committing suicide.

The disabled clients are being backed in their campaign by Aberdeen's two Labour MPs Frank Doran and Anne Begg.

The Choices campaigners have also set up a fighting fund to pay the estimated 20,000 cost of the legal action.

A spokesman for Aberdeen City Council said: "The issue has been complicated by the fact that some of the legislation referred to by Mr Doran in a letter to the city council a few weeks ago is no longer in place as it stands."