UPDATE – all change: We’ve just learned that during today’s Cabinet Meeting of Wiltshire Council ‘the proposed withdrawal of Community Transport grants was revisited, and funding has been reallocated to allow grants to continue’.
Original story: The very existence of Marlborough’s important, respected and well-used Jubilee Centre is being thrown into doubt by the latest proposed cuts to services by Wiltshire Council. Are they threatening to cut grants to the Jubilee Centre? No, but they are cutting the vital funding that keeps Kennet Community Transport on the roads, and the Link service, both of which are key parts of enabling the Jubilee Centre to provide the service that it does for it’s many elderly and relatively immobile clients right across this area.
Without the Kennet Community Transport minibus, or the Link service of door-to-door transport for Jubilee Centre regulars few would be able to attend. Cutting this funding would mean that the Jubilee Centre would not be able to function and many of the otherwise housebound elderly would remain housebound, and probably end up costing Wiltshire Council far more in other direct Social Care costs.
At last night’s (Monday 26 January) meeting of the full Town Council Wiltshire Councillor and Chair of the Jubilee Centre, Jane Davies outlined this real danger to one of Marlborough’s vital service providers for the older members of the community. Andrew Tatum from Kennet Community Transport also explained to the Town Council exactly what might happen to this service when the funding was cut and Mark McFarland of the Marlborough Link gave the members present some facts and figures regarding the trips that Marlborough Link makes in any one year – number of trips, combined mileage and cost – as all of this is about serving and helping the elderly in the Marlborough community. Andrew also noted that it wasn’t just the Marlborough Link service that would be affected, it was the other forty one services across Wiltshire that would suffer as well.
Cllr Davies told Marlborough.news: “The Jubilee Centre offers company, entertainment, support to shop or run errands plus a three course healthy lunch, freshly made in our kitchen. Our guests love attending and rely on community transport not only to bring them into the Jubilee but also Link volunteers will take them to hospital and medical appointments. Cutting this grant will directly affect our most vulnerable residents. The grant is £115,000 per annum across the county. This is a drop in the ocean compared to the £567 million budget proposed for Wiltshire Council next year.”
The irony in all of this, and these (relatively minor, financially) cuts is that those benefitting, those elderly relatively housebound residents are also Wiltshire Council Tax Payers. Customers of the Council, and apart from waste services (also being slashed) what else do they get for what they are forced to pay out? Is the council Tax being reduced? No. So get older, pay more, get less……
This is on top of the proposed ‘amendments’ to the Waste and Recycling services where two of the Recycling Centres are penned for closure (the nearby Compton Bassett site is one and this will inevitably affect Marlborough) and the move to a three weekly collection cycle, instead of the fortnightly service that has been in operation for years. And then there are the roads around here. The potholes, the dangerously large (and unnecessary) gaping holes in the road surface. Carbreakers. Once we all went to Cuba to experience such poor road surfaces. Now we just go to Tesco…..
Will Council Tax be reduced as a backhanded benefit? Unlikely. Any change will probably be in the opposite direction.
So Wiltshire Council, in the form of the recently elected LibDem group is in ‘Cutting Mode’. This isn’t a political statement in any way but there appears to be this fervent intent within the current leading group to slash costs, and cut the services that are most valuable to the communities, and in the case of the Transport Funding, the most vulnerable of the tax-paying community.
Recycling Centre closures – Compton Bassett and Purton now reprieved – they will remain open
