A training centre for adults with learning disabilities is to close next year.

Morley Tamblyn Lodge in Liskeard has been open for 30 years and is currently used by 58 people.

Plans to close the day centre have raised concerns that carers and those they care for will be left with little support or resources.

Liskeard mayor Anne Purdon said: 'A lot of people use that centre and we wouldn't want to see them without anywhere to go.

'It must be worked out properly because they build up friendships and to just blow it apart is heartless.'

Councillor Nigel Walker, from Cornwall Council, said: 'We do not want to invent smaller wheels to replace the bigger wheels in place.

'We are not building a mini Tamblyn Lodge. It is about giving them freedom and choice. We have to be sensitive and make sure there are sustainable places for them to be.

Detrimental

'What is still happening in Cornwall is people are being con?ned and put in these large centres that take them away from the community.

'Morley Tamblyn isn't integrated into the community at all and people are not used to seeing people with learning disabilities. They have the right to choose where they want to live and what they want to do.'

The council hopes the changes will get current users of the centre more integrated in their communities.

Under the new plans, adults currently attending Morley Tamblyn Lodge could be given individual budgets. This will allow them to decide what they spend their money on.

By 2011, the Department of Adult Social Care (DASC) at Cornwall Council plans to close day centres in Redruth and St Austell too.

But there are plans to develop a centre in the west of the county. Money is likely to be pumped into the John Daniels Centre in Penzance, developing it as a 'fully integrated community resource and centre'.

Looe mayor Ron Overd said: 'Any closure of a facility that caters for adults with learning disabilities has got to be detrimental to the community at large, including Looe and the surrounding areas.

Disgraceful

'It is a terrible shame and disgraceful that this is happening.

'These centres were opened because there was a perception there was a need for them.

'It sounds like it is part of the new Cornwall Council's money-saving scheme.'

It is thought £450,000 will be saved through the changes in the first year and this will be 'reinvested into the new service'.

The council hopes many of those using the day centre will seek sheltered workplaces.

The council has con?rmed nowhere will close until it is sure there are places to ?t the needs of people with learning disabilities.

The plans to modernise learning disability day centres were approved at the end of March.