Regular readers will remember John Rosenthal’s open letters to Cllr Mazillius published on VB. Following the news last week that Westminster House will remain in service in the short term, John asked us to share the following with our readers. Ed
I would like to say a sincere thank you to all of the people who have given their help and shown support in our efforts to keep the Respite Centre where it is, and should be, at Westminster House in Newport.
It has been a long, uphill struggle to get to this point, with a lot of research and hardwork, not only by myself, but by all of those involved over the last 12 months to attain this decision, of what could hopefully be a permanent stay of execution.
Particularly, a big thank you to Simon and Sally (VB) for publishing some of my correspondence to the council, in an effort to raise public awareness of the fact that we need to keep Westminster House open, and in Newport, as a centrally based respite centre, but also to some of the shortcomings of the council in the way which the proposal to move the respite elsewhere was put forward.
The fight continues
Needless to say the ‘fight’ is not over, there is still a lot of work to be done to show that this was the right decision, with the need to look at ideas, to not only save money, but to find possible extra uses that this wonderful facility can be used for.
I would also like to acknowledge the fact that, despite our differences, with only one exception Cllr Roger Mazillius promptly and courteously replied to my numerous letters and requests, albeit not always completely, but reply he did, in a very similar fashion to his predecessor, Cllr Mark Howell.
Hopefully, we can now lay our swords to one side for a while, whilst we contemplate the future for Westminster House and its excellent staff.
Yours, John Rosenthal
Image: Kev Flanagan under CC BY 2.0
