HOW sad I felt at the demise and closure of Waltham Forest Bathing Service after it had gone from strength to strength for the past nine years.

It gave a carefully supervised bath by trained carers to almost 200 people a week.

It was one of the old fashioned, quality services Waltham Forest became known for and other boroughs lacked, and it always had a waiting list.

It attended people who had no other services and whose innate cleanliness was a basic human right.

Some of these, previously independent people will land at the door of our already overstretched social services and this could have been avoided.

Who was responsible for this short-sighted decision? They should answer us.

JILL APPLEBY,

Forest Rise,

Upper Walthamstow