SURREY County Council's social services committee will need "factual evidence which supports a realistic, alternative view" if it is to change its mind about closing Kingsdale Resource Centre for the Elderly, Haslemere county councillor Christine Stevens said this week.
Mrs Stevens has been discussing the proposed closure of the home in Lion Green with residents and their relatives, who have formed an action group to fight the plans.
"Since last week I have spoken to relatives of the residents at Kingsdale and the relatives' campaign coordinator, Lucy Charman.
"I understand that relatives believed I was involved in the social services decision, which I was not.
"I was neither a member of the small group who produced the recommendation to close Kingsdale, nor a member of the committee that agreed the recommendation, subject to consultation," she pointed out.
Mrs Stevens said that she wanted to make it clear she was acting in her capacity as the local county councillor to address the question of how to ensure Kingsdale was not lost to the town as a "valued service and valuable building asset".
She said: "If members of the social services committee are to consider changing their minds about closure, they will need factual evidence which supports a realistic, alternative view.
"I know the relatives will be organising a professional fact-finding mission themselves. In addition, the officer/member task group which I am organising will be studying all practical options, within a Haslemere context.
"We need to keep talking to each other, because there is nothing worse than suspicion and misinformation."
Mrs Stevens stressed that "searching questions" needed to be answered, but could not say at this stage whether the work being put in locally would save Kingsdale.
"Nevertheless, whatever emerges, we should have faith in sensible and pragmatic approaches to the problem," she said.
Mrs Stevens added: "I am just glad that, once again, Haslemere's community and personal spirit is rising to meet a challenge. We can but try."