Day centre launches fight to stay open after funding is cut

8:10am Thursday 14th August 2008

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A PIONEERING day centre for the elderly, once labelled a “legacy” for the borough by the council leader, has launched a fight to stay open after the authority said funding it was “no longer sustainable”.

The Ruth Winston Centre has over 600 members and provides social activities for the over-50s.

Now staff there have stepped up their fund-raising and will have to investigate external sources of funding because all the current funds will be withdrawn after April 2009.

Senior council officers met with trustees of the centre on Monday and are now giving staff advice about how external funding can be sourced and which grants could be available.

Centre manager Michelle Day said: “We are just raising little bits of money to help keep going.

“It is worrying – March is not too far away and we need to act now.

“The council is going to support us and has already started. I’m very positive about that. But external funding is often for one-off projects and we need funding just to keep the centre going.”

The centre has had its funding slashed in half this year, receiving a cut of £60,000.

Its current grant will be spent entirely on staff salaries and it will now have to meet its other bills from fund-raising.

Chris Rash, chairman of the board of trustees, said the centre was unprepared for the cuts, saying he did not know that the money lost would be so great a proportion of the centre’s total budget.

The centre was founded in 1961 as the first of its kind by the former mayor of Southgate, who left the building, in Green Lanes, to the council in perpetuity to provide services to older people in the borough.

When the founder, Ruth Winston, died last year, council leader and trustee of the centre Michael Rye called the concept “her legacy”, and said it represented a “lasting tribute” to her commitment to developing services for older people.

However, after the centre became an activity and resource centre in 2006, the council decided that funding would have to be sought externally because such services, which help to keep people active and prevent them becoming depressed, do not have to be provided by law.

Members have expressed their dismay at the threat to the centre.

Richard Taylor, 76, who takes part in the country dancing classes there, said: “A lot of older people get depressed and they need somewhere to go.

“It would really affect a lot of our members if we were forced to close.”

Member, Ann Glass, 58, said: “The Ruth Winston centre has changed my life. It has given me the encouragement to go out and do different things.”