John Mann held a private meeting with Dukeries House residents, staff and their families on Thursday 5th June.  The meeting was well attended with representatives from Leonard Cheshire Disability and Notts County Council Social Services attending for the first half where they answered questions and responded to concerns.

Following this the meeting recognised that the decision to close was taken at the highest levels in Leonard Cheshire Disability and any challenge needs to be made directly to these people. It was agreed that within the next three weeks local MP's John Mann and Patrick Mercer will lead a delegation of staff, users and their families to London to meet the executive board and trustees of Leonard Cheshire Disability. 

John Mann has written to Colin Young, Director of Operations at Leonard Cheshire Disability and raised his concern that the trustees and board were not sufficiently familiar with the history of the building and its site and is seeking further clarification on the full financial situation of Dukeries House, its commitments to its other home in Nottinghamshire and decisions to close other homes in the past three years.

John Mann commented "This is a non-partisan issue, Patrick and I will work together on this.  The people of Retford raised the initial money to create this much needed facility and the proposal that it be sold off as a capital receipt is quite unacceptable.  Leonard Cheshire Disability has a good reputation in this county and in this country and their hasty decision has jeopardised their reputation and in a very big way."