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MY LETTER

Date added: Tuesday 17th August 2010

Sirs/Ma'am

I am writing to you in desperation, can you help me please? When we lost our beloved grandson Daniel in Basra Iraq in 2007 you reported so sincerely back then on our loss, I write to ...you in the hope that you will now help to raise this vital issue about Honeylands Children's Centre in Exeter, who helped us as a family up to the time we lost our beautiful grandson Jack at just four an a half years old.

There is so much that I need to tell you and I am in such despair and alarm at what our health authority and local council intend to do that I must search where ever I can to find any form of help available to support these beautiful children.

To do this I need to ask you to visit this website www.jackgodfrey.org.uk Jack was my beautiful little grandson, an angel of God who was taken from us when he was just four and a half years old, he had a brain condition call hydrocephalus and you will read about that on his website, also there you will be able to read the history of Honeylands and see some pictures too.
Jack was my youngest grandson and I have now also lost my eldest grandson Daniel in Basra, Iraq in 2007 this is his website www.operationbraveheart.org.uk you will also find us on facebook by typing in save Honeylands respite and you will read the depth of feeling of many people there who are concerned for the wellbeing of this fantastic place.

I am sorry that this is a long email but I need to give you as much information as possible so I have copied in emails I have received from Government departments and my personal letter to David Cameron the Prime Minister of the British Government.

The crux of the matter is this. Among the many things that this wonderful place does for special needs children is the provision of vital respite to parents of the children who come to Honeylands, some with severe and sometimes life threatening problems and respite is as I say vital to those parents to give them just a nights break for some meaningful ME time away from the constant 24/7 care that their special child needs.

As you will see from my website that I (and I hate using that singular word ) have been on a fund raising crusade for Honeylands since Jack was born, and I was on the league of friends committee who tirelessly raise funds themselves to support this wonderful place.

Honeylands for many years now have been under a review with an axe poised over their heads wielded by the PCT & health Authority, that axe has fallen in the most despicable way possible. Let me explain. About five or six years ago Honeylands had a bequest made from a benefactor who resides in Hong Kong the sum being one million pounds sterling.

Through the intransigence of the PCT & local authority that bequest has been hijacked and lost to Honeylands. The Health Authority/PCT & DCC intend to turn Honeylands solely into a child assessment centre, to do this they intend to remove respite from Honeylands completely and farm those children out into the community elsewhere. By so doing this has a very severe knock on effect on other equally similar children who go to other care facilities within the provision of care in Exeter and Devon, this affects in particular children at the meadow Park centre, these children will be moved 20 miles away to centres in Tiverton and Honiton in Devon with the children who currently attend Honeylands being moved to Meadow Park.

This is totally unacceptable from the viewpoint of those children at Honeylands, by the very nature of their special needs those children need to be in close proximity to the main hospital at Exeter, which at present is only minutes away, and minutes mean the difference between living and dying, and I am sorry for putting that bluntly to you, but that is the case, if those children have to go to Meadow Park we are then talking forty minutes minimum to get that child to hospital.

May I please now tell you the costs involved with this crass idea, and the road this health authority has now taken, but I need to backtrack to the donation I have previously spoken about. When we first heard about this bequest, we at Honeylands were absolutely overjoyed as we then saw how our future for respite could be mapped out, we wanted to have two dedicated respite bungalows built in the grounds of Honeylands, specifically designed and equipped to care for that special child's respite needs. Those two bungalows would have cost far less than the value of that bequest and would have left us money for other items for the main building.

We now have no bequest, as this has been hijacked by the PCT/Health Authority/DCC to go toward the cost of changing the use of Honeylands to a child assessment centre only, and the cost involved? TWO AND A HALF MILLION POUNDS + STERLING Yes you are reading correctly 2.5 million pounds plus! Money to be used at the expense of special needs children and parents desperate to receive much needed respite for just one night.

Parents have not been given enough time or due process to make their views known and I fear they have been led up the path by being given promises about funding which will in the end be withdrawn once the PCT has done what they intend to do.

Democracy has not been served here over this mismanaged episode, especially when people have been gagged and told not to speak about this to the media WHERE IS THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN ALL THIS? everyone has a RIGHT to voice their concerns publicly, is this not what Prime Minister David Cameron boasts FREE GOVERNMENT! OPEN GOVERNMENT, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE!!!! I have forgotten the name he uses for this, the big ??? this in essence is what he is saying, MORE FREEDOM FOR THE PEOPLE.

LET THE PEOPLE OF HONEYLANDS SPEAK AND LET THE PEOPLE OF DEVON DECIDE, THIS IS THE NEW OPEN DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT THAT DAVID CAMERON BELIEVES IN.