Campaigners vow to keep fighting to reopen care unit

Dr Mike Bossingham believes it is better for people living in north Norfolk to have access to a local care unit

Campaigners have vowed not to give up in their fight to get a local care centre reopened.

The Benjamin Court reablement unit in Cromer gave short-term care for people discharged from hospital until it closed in June 2023.

The NHS plans to sell the building but says the community will get first refusal on purchasing it.

Campaigner Dr Mike Bossingham said he and others had lobbied Health Secretary Wes Streeting and planned to take their fight to London, adding: "We're not going to give up."

Until 2017, the unit was run by the NHS, before it was taken over by Norfolk County Council.

The home offered beds for people aged over 65, and with dementia, who had left hospital but were not ready to return to their own beds.

Last month it was given asset of community value (ACV) status by lawyers at North Norfolk District Council.

NHS Property Services plans to sell the site and a spokesperson said: "Following the recent ACV status application being granted, we are able to offer the local community first refusal to purchase the building... If they are unable to or do not wish to make an offer, then the building will go to open market where we will look to generate best value and reinvest resulting proceeds back into the NHS."

Campaigners have already worked to prove the building is an asset of community value

Bossingham, 72, and a retired Methodist minister, said the unit had been a "valuable resource" for people living in north Norfolk.

"It's better for people in north Norfolk if when they have this care it is in north Norfolk because family and friends can visit.

"The truth of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital is it couldn't have been built in a worse place for north Norfolk."

Siri Taylor believes the unit is a "valuable resource" after her brother-in-law was treated in the unit

Fellow campaigner Siri Taylor said her brother-in-law was treated in the unit for three weeks, which helped rehabilitate him so he was not a "burden" on the NHS.

She said: "It's an incredibly valuable resource for the whole of north Norfolk which is a vast area... we are very much out on a limb here and it is essential for people of north Norfolk.

"We were desperate to get him in a home nearby... he was wheeled in here at 10 o'clock at night and you could see the relief on his face.

"He was put in a room here; treated like a human being."

She said the group did not want to see the building knocked down and turned into flats.

The NHS Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board has been contacted for comment.