Youth cuts dominate Regent’s Park ward Area Forum

Youth cuts to the Samuel Lithgow youth club dominated last night’s area forum, held at Netley School on William Street.

Samuel Lithgow, a local charity, is the only youth club on the estate – serving hundreds of local children out of a property owned by the council.

Over the last year the charity has – with the help of local councillors and the West Euston Partnership – secured a £350,000 contribution from British Land (from the Osnaburgh Street development), which helped a successful £400,000 contribution from the Big Lottery.

Despite this, the hard work of local volunteers has been undermined by a cut of over 30% in core funding – threatening the future of the youth club and its work with young people in the area while the centre is shut for rebuilding from the end of this year.

Without continued funding by the council the ability of Samuel Lithgow to operate effectively even after the rebuild is compromised.

The council defence – put across by the leader of the council recently - is that “more money is going into youth projects” than before. Actually this is being spent on programmes run elsewhere by the council, which cannot be used for staff wages. Without the funds to pay ‘core’ costs, youth projects have trouble recruiting and retaining staff, leading to a deteriorating service – with shorter hours.

What has happened to Lithgow has also happened to Fresh in Highgate, Queen’s Crescent and the Haven in Camden Town.

It’s not like this is a question of resources – the council have just admitted another massive underspend of £10 million. Just to give you an idea, to keep the Lithgow going would cost around £30,000 – 0.3% of this total.

Instead of stashing our cash – Camden should fund the Samuel Lithgow properly.

More youth cuts as we approach summer

It’s looking like hard year next year for Camden’s youth centres after another round of cuts by the Tory and Lib Dem administration.

After cuts to Queen’s Crescent, The Haven, Highgate New Town in this year’s funding commissioning process – the Samuel Lithgow on the Regent’s Park Estate now faces reductions - despite being in a high area of need.

Samuel Lithgow Youth Centre (SLYC) funding from Camden Youth & Connexions Service has been slashed from £45,000 in 2007/2008 to £29,792 in 2008/2009 - over 34% of funding slashed overnight.

What’s worse is that this decision to cut funding flies in the face of the hard work local volunteers have done towards raising £1,000,000 to fully refurbish Samuel Lithgow building (which belongs to LB Camden). When SLYC is shut for refurbishment/extension in December, for a year, it will need an extra £15,000 to rent local venues to deliver our services and to hire an office space.

It will also lose income from the fact that groups who normally rent the space will go elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the council seems to have no plan for what replacement services there will be to cover the shortfall. As everyone on the Regent’s Park estate knows – youth issues are on the rise, so cutting Samuel Lithgow makes no sense at all. This is just another set of cuts in a long line of post-2006 council funding decisions.

Caretaking to be privatised by Tory/Lib Dems

Camden Unison last week gave a vote of no confidence in housing chief Cllr. Chris Naylor after his plans to axe council tenants caretaking were revealed. Caretakers, many of whom live in the blocks they clean, are the ‘ears and ears’ of estates – providing a vital link between tenants (sometimes vulnerable ones) and the council. Camden housing staff have warned of council plans to reduce Camden’s service, in order to save money.

In today's CNJ Naylor tries, strangley, to blame "the government" for his own plans - but the new "Housing Management Improvement Plan" is totally his idea and his creature.
Plans include:
- A centralised (i.e. not district-based) call centre for rent queries
- Proposals to privatise the caretaking service and get rid of residential caretakers
- Less housing staff, with bigger patches, to provide the service

The plans have not been set out in full, but drip-fed from the council in order to avoid a full debate.

At the next Full Council meeting on Moday Labour will be promoting a motion against privatising caretaking – a test for Coalition councillors who profess to represent council tenants in areas with large estates like Kilburn, Cantelowes, Kentish Town, Gospel Oak, Haverstock, Camden Town with Primrose Hill and Highgate.

Privatisation of services hurt elderly

Gospel Oak community activist Sally Gimson warns of the Tory/Lib Dem threat to services to the elderly under the Town Hall's 'Better and Cheaper' agenda, see here.