MY mother is a resident of Shafto House, Newton Aycliffe, and as you can imagine our family is very worried about the threat of closure by Durham County Council (Echo, Jan 12).

Labour policy, we hear, is to keep people in their own home and this a wonderful idea – Shafto House is my mother’s home, the home she chose to live in when she could no longer manage alone.

It seems to me very sad that the council’s ruling Labour group voted almost unanimously in favour of consultations over closing my mother’s home – along with six other care homes – when she has been a Labour voter all her adult life.

She was an Aycliffe Angel working on Group 1, one of the first residents to come and live in Newton Aycliffe in 1948 and has always lived within half-a-mile of Shafto House. Surely, at the age of 91, she deserves to stay in her own home.

Mrs Ann Dryden, Newton Aycliffe, Co Durham.