Drugs centre closes its doors

Even before it opened in 1991, the Bexhill centre was surrounded by controversy. Between the summer of 1990 when work began to convert the former Stars Organisation For Spastics holiday home Colwall Court into a rehabilitation centre and February 1991 two mystery fires had damaged the building.

Neighbours who began a formal protest about creation of the centre formed the West Bexhill Residents' Association.

This week a Phoenix House spokesperson in London issued the following statement in response to Observer inquiries:

"Drug and alcohol treatment charity Phoenix House has, regretfully, made the decision to close its Bexhill service, one of six adult residential rehabilitation facilities in England.

"The decision was made in order to enable the organisation to reconfigure its residential treatment services, making it fitter for the future."

Chief executive Bill Puddicombe said: "It is always sad when a service closes its doors, especially a scarce resource like a drug rehabilitation service.

"After looking at the situation, however, we believe that this is our only option because for some while referrals to residential services have been reducing and Bexhill, which is our smallest facility, has become uneconomic.

"We will be concentrating on investing in our other services, ensuring that we have a sustainable group of rehabs able to provide communities with these essential services.

"All of the clients currently staying at the service and all those who were due to start their treatment have been found places elsewhere in our national network of residential services.

"We are doing everything we can to help staff find other posts within Phoenix House, but regretfully some staff may be made redundant."

Phoenix House operates other, similar adult residential services in London, Winchester, Sheffield, the Wirral, South Shields and Glasgow. The organisation also has two unique family services in Sheffield and Brighton.

Phoenix House has been providing residential services since 1970. It serves people who need help to regain control of their lives and has been instrumental in assisting thousands of people to move out of the cycle of drugs, crime and unemployment and into a life of active, participation in the community.

The Bexhill centre was established to provide residential rehabilitation for 30 clients who would take part in therapeutic six-month programmes before moving on to a Probation-funded halfway house before re-entering the community.

The centre earned a reputation for its success rates and at its open days former drug-users told the Observer of their gratitude for being given the opportunity to make a fresh start.

The centre was officially opened in October 1991 by Phoenix vice-patron Professor Griffith Edwards,a member of the World Health Organisation's expert panel on drug misuse.

Anthony Hamilton was one of the residents in the original public enquiry.

He said this week: "What we said at the time was it was insanity to put it here, because you don't put two dozen youths of any description - whether its two dozen young barristers or drug takers - into a small space and expect them to keep quiet.

"Of course that is exactly what happened.

"You could judge by the noise levels what time of year it was, what time of day it was. If it was April 1 the noise would go up. The staff went home at 5, then the noise came into operation.

"We could set our clocks by the noise."

He admitted that Jan Perkins had been a very good manager and a good number of complaints "dropped off the scale."

He said: "She was a revelation.

"Anything, I would have thought, would have been better than this at the moment. Essentially you can't have a quiet area of Bexhill where the people are predominantly retired folk, to mix with a rowdy group of youths. It is not possible.

"I want to make it quite clear that the current service manager Jan Perkins has been very helpful. She has taken on board all our criticisms and complaints."