Pembroke Dock’s Anchorage day centre could close as soon as November if a recommendation before senior councillors today (Monday, September 9) is backed.

The county council is currently changing care provision for older adults and those with learning disabilities, and fears have been raised recently that Pembroke Dock’s Anchorage day care centre is to close.

At the September 9 meeting of Cabinet, it is recommended members “close the Anchorage Day Centre with effect from November 1, 2024,” along with, as part of wider changes in the service, establishing social enterprise models in the Crymych’s Bro Preseli and Narberth’s Lee Davies Centre with effect from April 1, 2025.

The report for members lists three options: to maintain the status quo, the favoured option listed above, and to close the Anchorage with a social enterprise centre in Bro Preseli and ending the service level agreement with the Lee Davies Centre on March 31 of next year.

A series of engagement events have taken place at The Anchorage recently, outlining the reasons and the options in continued service.

The Anchorage Day Care Centre in Pembroke Dock has been a “safe and happy place” for adults with learning difficulties and additional needs for decades.

In more recent years it has expanded to support elderly dementia sufferers.

At the July meeting of Pembrokeshire County Council, members received a petition calling for the council to keep the centre open.

Speaking at that meeting, petition creator Peter Welsh – who said there had been no real consultation on the proposals – was joined by many of the service users in the public gallery at County Hall, Haverfordwest.

He launched an impassioned plea for the centre to remain open, saying of the service users: “They are a family, a happy group of individuals that enjoy being together in safety at their home, the Anchorage.

“They are effectively voiceless, we will be their voice.

“It’s an injustice; inexcusable targeting of the vulnerable. Please don’t use these vulnerable individuals as pawns for a money-saving gain.

“We may lose this battle today, but I hope not; they need your support. Just imagine if it was your son or daughter or grandchild being put through this uncertainty that is affecting their lives; you would feel the same sense of anger as us.”

To thunderous applause from the gallery, he finished: “July 18, 2024; for those in the gallery, today it is their day, their lives; yet it could be today that is also your day. Today we appeal to you on their behalf, today you have an opportunity to right a wrong.”

At the July meeting, Chief Executive Will Bramble said the pressures on social services in the county were so high that the 12.5 per cent council tax increase did not even meet the demands of that department alone, adding: “The only reason we were able to have a balanced budget was by cutting services in order to have a balanced budget.”

Despite a plea by local councillors Tony Wilcox and Brian Hall to give the centre a breathing space ahead of a potential move to an as-yet-unbuilt facility in Pembroke, the matter was expected to come before the September meeting of the council’s Cabinet.

The three options will be considered by Cabinet members on Monday.