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Under-threat service is vital for elderly
NOREEN Swepstone is 78, disabled, and lives on her own.
Her house is over a mile away from the nearest bus stop in Awsworth and she relies on community transport to take her shopping and drop her at craft workshops twice a week.
Last week, Noreen was horrified to hear that the free community transport scheme run by Eastwood Volunteer Bureau was one of the many services threatened with the axe as Nottinghamshire County Council tries to stave off 33 million deficit in its budget for next year.
She said: "For someone like me it's invaluable.
"I need someone with me when I go out to help me get around the shops or wherever.
"If I have a taxi, I don't get that sort of service and it would cost me a lot of money as well.
"I'm here all on my own and I hardly ever see my neighbours, particularly during the winter. So apart from getting a lift somewhere and being escorted, it's the social side – the aspect of socialising with other people means a lot to me.
"I've always been in a very social job because I used to be a teacher, and since I lost my husband a few years ago there's no-one to talk to. I miss him dreadfully.
"I've got to do something to relieve the monotony of talking to myself."
The community transport scheme is run from the Eastwood Volunteer Bureau on Wellington Place in the town.
If the county council proposals get the go-ahead, the bureau will lose its annual 16,000 grant which pays for the transport running costs, and the scheme will go under.
The council is taking 31 million from the 33 million it is intending to save by cutting some services and reinvesting it in other areas, but still leaving a 2 million deficit for next year.
Millions of pounds will be stripped from some services, including many for the elderly.
As well as community transport schemes across the county, the council plans to axe the Dial a Ride service, which is a taxi for pensioners and the disabled, sell off its 13 nursing homes to private companies, double the cost of Meals on Wheels, impose charges on day care services that are currently free and do away with free OAP bus passes before 9.30am.
More money will be ploughed into looking after vulnerable children and coping with an ageing population and council tax will also be frozen for the next three years.
The news comes as 160,000 has been given to community transport schemes in Derbyshire.
Mrs Swepstone, who also uses the service to go to the dentist, said: "The council should put people first, especially the elderly who rely on a service.
"I really do feel very, very strongly about it – to get rid of something that is so valuable to people in the community I think is diabolical.
"They should look at makings savings in areas where they spend unnecessarily.
"They have to realise that one day they will be old and using a service like this."
Gilbert Hughes, 76, also uses the free transport every Monday and Friday to go to Nuthall Friendship Club and Brinsley Art Club.
He has been the secretary of the friendship club for the last three years and said that, without the community transport, he would simply not be able to go.
Mr Hughes, from Kimberley, said: "It's the only way I can get there.
"I think it's very selfish of the council to do this, particularly when they have splashed out on doing the offices up."
Volunteer driver Phillip Boden has written to Broxtowe MP Nick Palmer to see if can help persuade the council to rethink.
Mr Boden said: "Just today someone said to me, 'I really appreciate what you're doing' and asked me in for a cup of tea. I had the time so I went in for a little natter – little things like that make a big difference.
"Some people even see a lift to the doctors as a nice little trip out."
Jas Hundal, service director for strategic and environmental services at the county council said: "Like all other local authorities, we are facing major budget pressures and, to make sure we preserve critical services, we have started a major review of how we spend taxpayers' money.
"As part of this review, we are proposing to withdraw our funding for community transport schemes to avoid duplication of services because there are other methods of transport available to users such as hospital ambulances and taxis with disabled access."
The council did not want to comment on the new furnishings in the council offices at West Bridgford.
Plans will now go out to public consultation until January next year and the final decisions will be made at the budget meeting in February.
The council anticipates it will make 85 million worth of cuts over the next three years and will receive about 6 million less from the Government in pay for the running of its services every year as of 2011.
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Weather for Eastwood
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Heavy snow
Temperature: -2 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: West
