DURHAM City Council is under fire for cutting home visits by care warden to pensioners.

The council's Liberal Democrat leaders say despite the cuts the service will be more flexible and responsive and blame the cuts on Government funding.

But their Labour opponents claim they have wasted money.

The cabinet approved recommendations that all users of the service receive a visit at least once every six weeks instead of twice and that each warden has their own area.

Councillors were told the council would have to raise £200,000 by increasing other charges if the changes were not made and that the service was under pressure from an expected further reduction in funding from the Government's Supporting People programme and increased demand.

A report to the cabinet pointed out that the service's control room was also responsible for the city's CCTV and the out-of-hours workload had increased because police now needed to view incident footage almost immediately.

Emergency calls from pensioners for wardens' help at night had increased substantially, the number of elderly people living at home was expected to increase, and also some users had requested that routine warden visits stop.

The report predicted the stream*ining of a growing number of other health and social care services to the point where accessibility is reduced and that any 24-hour response services are more likely to be focused around providing advice rather than home visits.

Carol Woods, cabinet member for finance, said: "Increasing requests for out-of-hours service have placed great stress on the service and we need to react to that.

"The cuts in the Supporting People Grant have left us with a significant financial problem."

Council leader Fraser Reynolds said reducing routine check-ups on able pensioners would mean more visits to vulnerable pensioners.

Labour leader David Bell said the Liberal Democrats were squandering the inheritance of a service set up in the Eighties.

He said three posts in the service would be lost along with 49 others across the council in a restructuring and that his calls to seek funding from the police, health and social services were rejected.

He said: "Liberal Democrat leaders are always complaining about not having enough money. Yet the cabinet is booking rooms in the Royal County Hotel to interview applicants for new posts they've created in the new staff structure.

"Why can't they use the Gala Theatre, for instance, or the new conference rooms at Dragonville?"