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Camden New Journal - by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 28 June 2007

Andrew Marshall - 'The budget had been carved up fairly'

‘Cuts could finish us’

Community volunteer groups make plea for more cash

VOLUNTEER workers queued at the Town Hall last night (Wednesday) to plead for help in the face of stinging cuts in council spending.
Eleven organisations from across the borough spoke in front of a Liberal Democrat and Conservative cabinet meeting – only to be told by senior councillors that they would have to make do with less money or no grant at all.
The groups included Overtones, a music studio in Holborn that has been working with Spice Girls Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell in the past two weeks.
Overtones chairwoman Polly Eldridge described how it had helped disabled and underprivileged members of the community for more than 25 years and has been pencilled in by the council to produce music for the opening of the Channel Tunnel at St Pancras.
She said: “When people couldn’t come to us, we have gone to them. We have taken our work into the Camden community – into schools, prisons, youth clubs, community centres and parks.”
Ken Savage, of the Greater London Pensioners Association, told the council the cuts in funding to his group would cause it to “dissolve”.
Mr Savage said: “We have been in existence way before most of the people here were born. It’s the oldest pensioners’ association in London.”
Council chiefs said they had to cut funding to the group because they were not solely working for Camden pensioners.
Ubah Egal, from the Somali Cultural Centre in West Hampstead, was looking for money to fund a paid staff member.
She warned councillors that services for Somalis in the south of the borough would not be used by those living in the north.
“We really need that funding,” she said. “We are the key contact post for Somalis in north Camden.”
Conservative councillor Andrew Marshall insisted the budget had been carved up fairly.
He said new services were being created by a re-distribution of funds.
“I wouldn’t normally make a crass appeal to the media but try and get the balance right – we’ve made a lot of new organisations happy,” said Cllr Marshall.
He warned the cuts were, in part, made in anticipation of a budget tightening from central government and that other services, such as recycling and adult social care, were going to demand a bigger spend.
The biggest chunk of funding will go to the Camden Law Centre and the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, which collectively will get nearly £1.4 million. Funding will also go to setting up a credit union.
Cllr Marshall said: “With ever increasing demands on council funds, we must make sure that all funding is spent efficiently.”

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