SHELTERED housing residents have reacted with outrage to the council's request for leave to appeal the High Court ruling which overturned its bid to cut residential wardens.

David Young, chairman of the UK Pensioners Strategy Committee which brought the case in the High Court against the council in December, said: “I think it's absolutely disgusting. The whole system for pensioners in Barnet will be turned upside down.

“Eventually there will be no sheltered housing in England. It's outrageous the way they're carrying on.”

The council has said it cannot afford to provide a service for all the elderly people who need help in the borough and so has to spread the wardens' services around more people.

At the same time it is proposing cuts in adult social care alongside a two per cent rise in the cost of care for those who have to pay for it.

Mr Young, of Kingsley Court, Tayside Avenue, Edgware, said: “There are cuts all the way around the council and the Government too but we're not talking about money, we're talking about life and death. They just don't care.”

Its application to the High Court is for the option to appeal and may not lead to an actual request for an appeal.

However residents are certain this will happen.

Disabled resident Marlene Abeygunaratne of Deborah Lodge in North Road, Edgware, was on the verge of tears today talking about the appeal request.

“My children are in the States and I'm all alone now. Our warden Ann comes to see me every day and she's been here 22 years, it's not fair.”

Mrs Abeygunaratne has a raft of health issues including back and neck pain, diabetes, blood clots, high blood pressure and a form of vertigo which turns her “into a zombie”.

The 70-year-old widow moved into sheltered housing on the advice of her doctor.

“You name it I've got it,” she said. “That's the reason I'm here, because I needed to be helped and now they're going to take that help away.

“When my blood pressure shot up and I got sick Ann was the first person here to get the ambulance and take to hospital.

“She was here within two minutes. Frankly I think floating wardens won't work, it will be more like two weeks.”

Mrs Abeygunaratne like many other residents, relies on her warden for all sorts of help, from filling in benefit forms to going out of the residence on trips.

“We also need a life, when they take away the wardens what do they expect us to do?

“The bottom line is we need them.”

Mr Young said residents were going to fight on.

“We've not lost yet, just because they've been given leave to appeal doesn't mean they'll win,” he said.