HE is a devoted father who cares full-time for a daughter with severe learning difficulties and diabetes, and whose only proper break comes when she goes for respite care at a York care home.

So Peter Farrar was stunned when he discovered recently – through a staff member’s casual comment – that Dormary Court in York was closing and his daughter, Melanie, would no longer be able to go there for monthly respite.

Mr Farrar, of Woodthorpe, York, spoke out after The Press revealed earlier this month that the home in Huntington Road, home to 15 people with learning difficulties, was being closed down by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and its sister organisation the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust.

James Lund, whose sister Janet lives at Dormary Court, accused the foundation of betraying its founders’ legacy, but the foundation denied it was abandoning residents, who would instead be moving to more mainstream housing.

Mr Farrar said Melanie, 34, was born with severe learning difficulties and also suffered from insulin-dependent diabetes, which required him to give her two injections a day.

He said he cared for her full-time, apart from when she went for day care three days a week. And since his wife, Kay, died last March, he had cared for Melanie alone.

He said: “I have to wash and dress her, prepare her food, clean her clothes, and give her the injections – basically do everything for her.”

“For several years, she has been going to Dormary Court for one weekend every month, on a Friday and Saturday night.

“It’s a chance to re-charge my batteries and get out, for example to go out for a meal with my son and his wife.”

He said far from being consulted and informed about the closure plans, the first he knew of it was about a fortnight ago when a member of staff said in the course of a conversation: “You do know about Dormary Court closing down?”

No one had told him anything about this until then and it was a shock. When he subsequently spoke to Melanie’s social worker, it emerged that she also had known about the closure as well but had not told him, and no one had yet informed him if there would be any alternative provision.

He said he had always hoped that if both he and his wife died before Melanie, she would be able to live at Dormary Court, where she was always happy. “But, obviously, that’s not going to happen any more.”