Vulnerable Adults Are To Be Given New Home In Ely

VULNERABLE adults are to be given a new £1million home in Ely.

Fifty mental health outpatients are to move from the Dickensian-style Croylands building on Cambridge Road to Larkfield on High Barns, where they will join learning disabled students who are already catered for at the centre.

A spokesperson for Cambridgeshire County Council said the building project, which has been given the go-ahead for September, would be partially funded by the sale of Croylands and a contribution from the Cambridgeshire Primary Care Trust.

The spokesperson insisted investment was not a reaction to the county receiving the lowest possible rating for adult social care - just one star - in 2007.

"It's part of a continuous programme - the two things aren't linked," he told the Ely Standard.

"Croylands has been around a long time and its looking a bit tatty, frankly."

He added that there were some structural problems with the Victorian-era mental health facility and that the sale of it was going through over the summer.

Learning disabled and mental health patients will be on the same Larkfield site but facilities will be largely separate. None of the patients at Croylands are deemed high risk to themselves or to society at large.

"It is going to be a huge improvement," said Diana Jacubowska of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mental Health Partnership.

"The way that we look at people with mental health problems has changed radically and we are glad to have a centre that is fit for purpose. The new facility will help our users integrate into the community - they have a range of needs and all are capable of living in the community - we only admit people in very rare cases these days."

Larkfield was originally designed to accommodate 70-80 learning disabled people and now houses just 50 - so it was deemed that with improvements, the site could house day care for adults with mental health issues.

Croylands is used as a base for community psychiatric and mental health care.