A POOLE campaigner, who was among the ranks at Parliament’s largest disabled people’s protest, has welcomed the government’s U-turn on axing payments to care home residents.

When the government announced plans, in last year’s Spending Review, to cut the mobility part of Disability Living Allowance, thousands of care home residents said the move would leave them virtual prisoners in their homes.

Disabled charities, including Scope, Leonard Cheshire Disability and Mencap, rounded on the government and earlier this year more than 5,000 campaigners travelled to London’s Parliament Square for a mass protest.

Many protesters, including Wendy Tiffin – a resident of Poole’s Mount Road Grange Leonard Cheshire Home – were disabled.

Many were in significant pain and discomfort, but such was the strength of feeling against the proposal – which would have left around 80,000 people without the crucial £51 a week travel allowance – they made the Westminster journey regardless.

However, following an independent report – The Low Review – which concluded that axing the benefit would deny people control of their own lives, Work and Pensions Minister Maria Miller confirmed to MPs that the plan will not go ahead.

A triumphant Wendy Tiffin told the Daily Echo: “This means I still have the choice to get out in the community, whereas if the benefit had of been stopped, I would have been a virtual prisoner in my care home.

“I always thought they might scrap the plans, but I didn’t think the announcement would have come so soon. I thought they would make us hang on.

“But so many people protested about this and made the government re-think the plans.”

Wendy even took part in the Low Review, forming part of the steering group that finalised the document.

“I think Maria Miller read this document and I believe it helped her come to the right decision,” said Wendy.

“This benefit is a lifeline for tens of thousands of people and it is such a relief, especially in time for Christmas, to know they are not going to get rid of it.”

Leonard Cheshire Disability chief executive Clare Pelham said: “We applaud the government for listening to the thousands of disabled people who have raised this issue, and reversing the plan to scrap this vital benefit.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: “We have always made it clear that we will not make any changes that stop disabled people in care homes from getting out and about.”