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U-turn leaves children in lurch
• SOMERS Town is to lose key junior after-schools provision.
Our management committee was asked to take on a junior group which was going to have to shut down as the building it was based in was to be refurbished.
We were told: “The provision of services for this age group has been a priority for the council for some time.” Following the completion of a good bid to continue working with this “priority group” for 2007-8, we were notified on March 2 that our application had been rejected on the basis that our bid for support to 8-13-year-olds was “clearly outside the Youth and Connexions funding criteria”. A classic U-turn.
We have an average of 28 young people accessing our sessions and families who are dependant on us. We are left feeling that Youth and Connexions shifted the club to avoid the smell when it closed it. We are not completely naïve but have asked for service head Nick French and Councillor John Bryant to meet us to demand that at the very least we have a stay of execution of six to nine months, which will allow us to fundraise.
Then we can get on with the job of delivering services to young people and families who need them.
SLANEY DEVLIN
Chair, Somers Town Community Association |
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