Camden New Journal - News: Save our water centre plea

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Camden New Journal - by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 19 April 2007

Save water centre plea

THE desperate chairman of a popular waterside youth club wrote a begging letter to Camden telling them: “It will be a tragedy if we close.”
In an email seen by the New Journal, the chairman of the Jubilee Waterside Centre in King’s Cross, Martin Shaw, claimed funding from Camden had been squeezed – and that without help the taxman would move in at the end of the month.
He wrote: “The day-to-day cash flow is quite reasonable but without the level of grant aid we were used to in the past from Camden, and without any further support from the various Lottery funds and other charitable funds, we cannot sustain the Centre.
“Despite all our best efforts we have now had to engage the services of an administrator whose task it is going to be to either put the Centre into liquidation or try selling it off or finding a new partner.
He accused councillors and officials of ignoring at least four phone calls from him, asking for help, and said “It will simply be a tragedy (if Waterside closes).”
The centre, based in Camley Street, was opened 30 years ago in the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee – hence the name – and offers services to youths including those at risk of offending, as well as adults and people with learning or physical disabilities.
Camden defended cutting off funds and said they couldn’t keep coming to the centre’s rescue. A Camden press official said: “On several occasions over the last two years Camden Council has given the centre emergency funding – most recently in December – so that it can remain open.
“We don’t want to lose this valuable community resource. However, we cannot continue to step in each time the centre is in financial difficulty.”

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