City Council to keep Parson's Court open for an extra 3 months

12.00.00am GMT Fri 23rd Dec 2005

Executive City Councillor for Community Development and Leisure, Joye Rosenstiel, has today responded to an Age Concern funding application for an Older People's Centre.

Age Concern has applied for £18,000 funding each from Cambridge City Council, Cambridgeshire County Council and Cambridge City Primary Care Trust in order to set up a new Older People's Centre in Cambridge. This application followed the decision by Age Concern to close the Parson's Court Centre in September 2005.

Cllr Rosenstiel commented:

"The City Council has always made the well-being of older residents and providing for their specific needs a priority. We are already funding a variety of programmes such as Dial-a-ride, concessionary bus fares, community centres and the taxi-card scheme as well as many different provisions through the grant scheme.

"We have already agreed to fund Parson's Court until March 2006 and are increasing that funding to allow the centre to remain open for a further 3 months.

"However the Older People's Centre is a brand new project, on top of funding that Age Concern already receive. In addition the proposed centre doesn't yet have a 'home' and is wholly dependent on receiving a total of £70,000 from different sources. Finding suitable premises in the city centre is a difficult process and it is important that this and other details of the scheme are worked out early on.

"As a new project the application will go before the Community Services Scrutiny Committee in January, which will decide whether new funding can be found for the scheme but this will have to come out of existing grants budgets and so there will be other competing priorities.

"I hope to meet with Age Concern and other partners in the community to discuss future provision to older people in Cambridge."