Campaigners to hold ‘silent vigil’ on 6th February near one of eight County Council care homes facing closure

Derbyshire County Cllr Joss Barnes, courtesy of Derbyshire County Council.

By Jon Cooper – Local Democracy Reporting Service

Campaign organisers have hit back at Derbyshire County Council after the authority had urged them to cancel a planned demonstration outside one of its eight care homes that have all become subject to a collapsed sale to a private provider and feared closures.

The council’s Reform UK administration had appealed to the union UNISON and MPs to reconsider plans for a ‘protest’ outside The Grange care home, on Southgate, in Eckington, on February 6th, with concerns for the residents ahead of a further demonstration at the council’s County Hall on February 11th.

But UNISON East Midlands insists its demonstration near the care home will go ahead after it has always been planned to be a controlled ‘silent vigil’ with only small numbers.

UNISON East Midlands Regional Officer, Dave Ratchford, said: “UNISON will not be cancelling our planned event outside of the Grange Care Home, Eckington, on February 6th. To be clear, this event is not a public rally and is more of a ‘silent vigil’ to mark the gravity of the planned closure of eight of the council’s remaining 12 residential adult care facilities.

“There will be no prospect of distress to residents as we will not be on site but instead at the entrance to the driveway on the main road adjacent to the site.

“No resident will be able to see us unless they leave the site and come out into the community. The location of the group will be far away from the site and obscured by trees.”

Cllr Joss Barnes, Cabinet Member for Adult Care, stated in a letter addressed to UNISON and MPs that he does not object to the protest at Derbyshire County Council on February 11th, which he say is an ‘appropriate, public, and democratic forum for political and industrial challenge’ but he absolutely objects to what he defines as the ‘protest’ planned outside The Grange Care Home, on February 6th.

He argued The Grange accommodates residents who are emotionally vulnerable to any disturbance particularly three with sensitive needs including one receiving end of life palliative care and any demonstration at the site would be unsettling for them.

Cllr Barnes claims ‘any protest’ at The Grange care home would fly in the face of advised safeguarding objections from the council, and the responsibility for any distress caused would lie with the demonstration organisers.

He added: “The Grange currently accommodates three residents, with differing needs from severe mental health to complex care needs, with one resident receiving end of life palliative care. This is not a public or administrative site, but a quiet residential care environment supporting people who are emotionally vulnerable and likely to experience distress and anxiety caused by the planned noise and disruption.

“A protest outside the residential care home, regardless of size or intent, would be deeply unsettling and incompatible with safeguarding principles, compassionate care, and our duty to protect residents from avoidable harm.

“These concerns have been clearly communicated to UNISON in advance. If the protest proceeds, it cannot be claimed that the potential impact on residents was unforeseen.”

Cllr Barnes also claims that the planned ‘protest’ at The Grange is politically-motivated on the grounds that the issue is being used as a chance to attack the Reform UK controlled council at the expense of real concern for care home residents or the affected staff at the care home.

He said: “We note that UNISON’s own national communications, including content published on its website, make clear the union’s active opposition to Reform UK and the current Reform administration at Derbyshire County Council.

“In that context, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the protest planned for the 6th of February 2026 is driven and motivated by political activism and opposition to the current Reform administration at Derbyshire County Council, using vulnerable residents simply as a backdrop for a political demonstration, rather than concerns for the welfare of residents and council staff.”

Following criticism over the collapsed sale of The Grange and seven other care homes, Cllr Barnes also said any suggestion that residents are being abandoned or placed at risk is inaccurate and risks unnecessarily alarming families and the wider community.

He stressed that each care home resident is being supported with a dedicated case worker, families are being consulted and kept involved in the process, and staff will be supported with redeployment and employment processes.

His letter stated the February 6th ‘protest’ represents a conscious and deliberate decision despite the council’s safeguarding objections and the responsibility for any distress caused to residents will rest with the organisers and those who publicly endorse or attend the demonstration and any elected representatives who support or participate will be doing so in full awareness of the risks and objections.

Cllr Barnes described plans for the February 6th ‘protest’ at The Grange as ‘inappropriate’ but he defined the planned protest at County Hall, in Matlock, as ‘appropriate’.

However, UNISON East Midlands Regional Officer, Mr Ratchford, said: “No resident will be able to hear us as we have mandated noise levels to remain strictly at conversation levels. There will be no chanting and no sound amplification equipment.”

Mr Ratchford added that there will be no more noise than if two people were ‘conversing whilst waiting for a bus’, there will be no more than seven or eight people and the event is being treated as an ‘observance’ rather than a large scale protest and there are no legitimate safeguarding objections.

He said: “Cllr Barnes is also mistaken in labelling this as a political protest against Reform. It is an event to draw attention to the desperate circumstances of adult residential care provision in Derbyshire and its future.

“We literally just ran a campaign last year against the previous administration and will continue to hold any political administration to account that threatens the provision of essential public services, whatever their point of origin.”

Cllr Barnes said the council remains open to dialogue and engagement to ‘ensure any protest is conducted responsibly, ethically, and without harm to vulnerable people’ and Mr Ratchford said UNISON remains ever ready to discuss these matters constructively.

Mr Ratchford added: “If Cllr Barnes and the present administration really want to demonstrate their commitment to staff, service users and the community of Derbyshire, they should either try again to secure a buyer or buyers for the care homes as an ongoing concern or, better still, avoid the obvious future calamity of inadequate provision by keeping them in-house.

“Whilst we understand and support the approach to keeping the elderly independent and in their own homes as far as is possible, the absolute numbers of those requiring residential care is extremely unlikely to decline. It is a matter of record that the population of Derbyshire is an ageing one.”

Derbyshire County Council is being forced to revise its plans with feared closures for eight of its care homes following a failed attempt to sell the homes to a single provider.

The former Conservative-controlled council controversially agreed to sell the eight care homes while managing a multi-million pound budget deficit after it argued a need to refocus adult care services by supporting more dementia patients and helping more people to stay at home due to what it claimed was a decline in demand for residential care.

Despite the new Reform UK council administration taking control after the May election it echoed a similar strategy but the council confirmed on December 15 that the planned sale had collapsed and UNISON claims the authority will be shutting the homes after its failed attempt to sell them to a private provider.

Mr Ratchford has said UNISON is urging Council Leader Cllr Alan Graves to intervene and stop the ‘closures’ to protect residents who rely on stable, familiar care as well as staff who have dedicated their working lives to supporting them.

The eight care homes the former Conservative council agreed in November 2024 to stop operating and to sell included: Briar Close, at Borrowash; Castle Court, at Swadlincote; The Grange, at Eckington; Lacemaker Court, at Long Eaton; The Leys, at Ashbourne; New Bassett House, at Shirebrook; Rowthorne, at Swanwick; And Thomas Colledge House, at Bolsover.

The union had opposed the closures from the very start, led demonstrations and protests, organised public meetings and repeatedly urged the council to rethink plans it says risk uprooting vulnerable residents and breaking up experienced care teams.

Opposition Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green Party councillors previously joined campaigners and concerned residents in a failed bid to stop the former Conservative council agreeing to sell the eight care homes.

Nine Labour MPs also appealed to the former Conservative council administration in July, 2024, to reconsider its proposals to close the care homes after they claimed this could prove to be ‘devastating’ with ‘serious consequences’.

The new Reform UK-controlled council stated the focus of the council’s in-house care homes is now upon the growing number of people with dementia and their carers including long-term specialist dementia care coupled with respite day and night breaks.

It had agreed in principle for a single care home provider to take over the running of all eight residential homes as part of a wide-reaching plan by the authority to remodel its in-house care services.

The council says the current focus on its in-house care homes is based on providing wraparound care for the growing number of people with dementia and their carers alongside closer working with health partners to increase the number of community support beds to help with timely discharges from hospital.

However, Mr Ratchford said UNISON East Midlands cannot agree that private sector placements are an acceptable substitute because he says the quality of provision in the private sector remains greatly in question and he claims the costs of private care are too unstable and have already led to enormous problems for the council in children’s care.

UNISON Derbyshire branch secretary Martin Porter said: “People are angry, but they are also desperate for common sense to prevail. If there is a way to keep homes like The Grange open, that must be better than shutting the doors and forcing residents to move.

“If people feel strongly about these closures, we’re asking them to join us outside County Hall, in Matlock, at 1pm, on Wednesday, February 11, to call on the council to stop and rethink these plans.”

The former Conservative-controlled council also agreed to sell a ninth care home – Ada Belfield, in Belper – by putting it up for transfer on the open market.

The council’s new Reform UK administration has stated it intends for this centre to be leased to a new provider after they have appointed property Ernest Wilson to offer the commercial lease on the facility.

Ada Belfield is currently being marketed as a going concern with the council looking to transfer this care home to a provider with a proven track record and the council aims to offer it for lease and retain the building.

Campaigners who have opposed the sale of Ada Belfield in a long-running campaign have raised concerns that privatisation gives care companies the freedom to raise fees to any level they choose and the campaigners claim that nearly 90 per cent of private care home residents nationally require council supplements to pay for their accommodation.

Labour MPs including NE Derbyshire’s Louise Sandher-Jones, along with Chesterfield’s Toby Perkins and Amber Valley’s Linsey Farnsworth – who have both spoken out with concerns for the future of the eight affected care homes – were all contacted but had still not commented at the time of publication.