Council officers held a meeting at RAGC last week for parents and carers of the gardeneers to explain what will happen next, following the council’s decision to go ahead with the recommendations in report 1605. Key points from the meeting were:
- All gardeneers who currently attend RAGC will stay at the site for now (no timescales given). There are no immediate plans to move anyone to another site.
- Current staff will stay at RAGC (hooray!).
- RAGC will come under Adult Health and Social Care from 1st April, with work on the transition from Green Spaces taking place in the meantime.
- The gardeneers who have a social care plan naming RAGC will continue to have their plans reviewed in the usual way. Support plans will be created for all the other gardeneers. Both types of plan may eventually include gardeneers being placed at other venues such as Queens Walk or the Civic Centre.
So, some positives for now but we still have lots of unanswered questions about the future of RAGC. We will continue to press for a return to what it was before it was closed to the public. We have a meeting with council officers this week (week beginning 2/3/26) to discuss our proposal for an alternative funding model.
