WOULD-be Liberal Democrat party leader Nick Clegg blasted proposed cuts to adult day care services during a whistle-stop tour of Dorset.

Mr Clegg was in the county to talk to party supporters about the leadership battle but also met campaigners battling to keep threatened day centres open.

Dorset County Council is reviewing its day services for older people in a bid to tackle serious funding issues and help modernise its approach to providing day care.

Its adult and community services directorate is facing a major budget shortfall, and needs to make savings of around £600,000 in day service provision. At the same time, it needs to ensure the service remains fit for meeting people's needs in the future.

Proposals have been drawn up to address this issue in two phases. The first phase involves plans to give better value for money by raising occupancy levels - providing services to the same number of people but in a smaller number of centres.

The centres proposed for closure are Beaminster, Crossways, Rawson Court, Gillingham, Swanage (to be merged with Wareham) and Fernhill, Weymouth to be merged with the Acorns in Weymouth.

Mr Clegg described the suggested closures as a spectacular own goal' by the leading Conservative group on the county council.

He said: "I am as dismayed as anyone that the county council is failing to get its priorities right.

"It is investing money in a new computer system while failing to provide essential services.

"It is a spectacular own goal to cut back services that people need in the name of an IT system that people don't think will benefit them.

"It's exactly the kind of thing that the county council should not be spending tax payers' money on. It reveals a lot about a political party on what money is spent on and where it is not."

Mr Clegg went on to call on the Government to do more to meet the needs of servicemen and women.

He said the issue of the way service personnel were treated was something that people in Dorset were very interested in and called on the Government to ring-fence part of the defence budget to improve conditions, including the standards of housing.