RESIDENTS at a Christchurch sheltered housing scheme have appealed to their landlord to rethink changes to the support service they receive.

The accommodation at Trafalgar Court in Mudeford provides more than 80 homes to elderly people and care is currently provided by two wardens who are on site Monday to Friday.

However, Sovereign Housing Association have said this support is set to change due to Dorset County Council altering its services from April.

After first being told about changes back in the summer, a petition was produced that carried more than 100 signatures calling on the landlord to leave the current system alone.

The two wardens currently working at Trafalgar Court will be replaced with an "independent living officer" from Sovereign in April, while residents will be assessed to see if they meet criteria for the Dorset Integrated Prevention and Support Service (DIPSS).

Residents are concerned the service they receive will be diminished, with the Sovereign officer covering a number of different sites.

Mark Pettengell, 57, who has lived at Trafalgar Court for around two and a half years, said: "The wardens are always there to help and that is going.

"So many vulnerable people rely on the call in the morning.

"I need to move to a ground floor flat because of my health and I stated I would not move to a different site because of the community we have here and the care you get from the wardens. These changes are not what we signed up for."

Fellow residents, whose ages range from 55 to 99, shared these concerns.

The two part-time wardens are employed by East Boro Housing Trust. The tenancy service warden is funded through the service charge residents pay and the general welfare service is funded by Dorset County Council (DCC).

Sovereign say from April DCC has decided to end its support service contracts with social housing landlords in favour DIPSS.

Helen Hann, Sovereign's divisional director, said: “We appreciate this may cause residents some concern, so we wrote to residents again at the end of January to explain that we’ll make sure we’re ready to pass on their details to DCC if they need a referral to the new support service.

“We also ran a ‘drop-in’ session at Trafalgar Court earlier this month to discuss these changes and answer any queries.

“We’ll continue to provide a tenancy-related service but, from April, this will be delivered by one of our own Independent Living Officers instead of by East Boro. That member of staff will still visit the scheme regularly and carry out things like health and safety and security checks of the building, checking that grounds maintenance and cleaning is being carried out properly and so on."