A PROTEST meeting over the closure of a busy day shelter in Bradford city centre is to take place next month.

Campaigners from the Save the Edmund Street Day Centre group have invited councillors to explain why the shelter is being closed.

The service, which has been based on Edmund Street for 40 years, is to be moved out of the city centre to the Salvation Army base on Leeds Road - one and a half miles away.

The move came after Bradford Council took the contract for the service from Horton Housing and gave it to the Salvation Army, which will provide the day shelter provision from December.

The public meeting will be at the New Beehive Inn, on Westgate, on October 6 at 6.30pm.

Campaigner Peter Robson, of the Bradford Socialist Party, said: “Speakers will include service users. Local councillors will also be invited to justify their decisions.

“Edmund Street Day Centre faces closure on December 1 this year, with the service being handed to the Salvation Army in the city. This will be a much smaller site some 1.5 miles away up a steep hill.

“If we do not stop the closure of this service in December, we will not have a service in the city that has been central for 40 years and has no doubt saved many, many lives.

“Please join the campaign to force the Council to continue the funding of this essential service.”against 

Mr Robson said campaigners wanted councillors to explain why they were “closing this essential service down without any real consultation or, indeed, interaction with the service users or the public”.

He added: “The users of this service are vulnerable people who rely on food, health care and clothing from the centre on a daily basis. To deny them this and expect people who are, quite frankly, very ill to walk 1.5 miles up Leeds Road to another service is beyond belief.”

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