More ‘bad news to come’ amid Birmingham City Council cuts

Protesters gathered outside the council house on Tuesday as the campaign against the proposals continued.

Full-time carer Jean Cross, 64, is fighting to save Harborne Day Centre from closure.

Her brother Robert Mason has been going there for 43 years, since it opened.

Jean, from Edgbaston, said: “If Robert doesn’t go to another day centre that’s my life finished. It’s a 24-hour job, seven days a week. I only get five hours a day as it is.”

The 62-year-old is severely disabled and attends the centre five days a week. Not only does it get him out the house, he gets to meet other people and is taken on trips, his sister said.

“It’s very stressful and I’m pretty young. I’ve got 80-year-old carers on the phone to me crying because they are that stressed out at their time in life,” she said.

“They are picking on the most vulnerable. Robert is peanuts. Carers are cheap labour. The silent army that trundles on day after day, under the radar and we just get on with it.”

She called on the new Labour-led government to do more for the “unsung heroes”.

“It’s about time they started looking after us.”