BBC Radio Stoke
BBC“We definitely need a cash injection… I think by twelve months we would be at the end of a tether if we didn’t get funding by then.”
Those are the words of Alex Pitula, a community group manager, reacting to last week’s news of £20m in government support over the next 10 years for Bentilee and Ubberly, Stoke-on-Trent.
Mr Pitula, who leads Bentilee Volunteers (BV), fears the group, which has been providing community support for 38 years, may have to close without increased financial support.
Both the city council and area MP Gareth Snell have said local people should decide how the money is spent, with Snell saying it is about providing “the resources to shape the area’s future”.
Gina Welton, who has lived in Bentilee for 12 years, and volunteers at the centre helping with the Seniors’ Lunch Club.
“It’s like a lifeline, the people that come here don’t see anyone all week”, she said.
“They come here and they get that little bit of company and a meal, it’s hard to keep that going with the cost of everything it’s so expensive.”
The lunch club was set up to help combat loneliness in the older generation.
“They come in and they build a little community for themselves, we just need some money to back it, if more was put into here it would help keep this place going,” Ms Welton explained.
Mr Pitula says that the support the community needs is already being provided, so the financial support does not need to be used to create new groups.
“There is lots going on, there’s lots of things that are established and doing it,” he said.
“Now, whether they are scraping by, funded or not, they are doing it because there’s a need for it.”
‘Parts of Stoke left behind’
He spoke to BBC Radio Stoke about the financial future of the centre the volunteers operate in.
“We definitely need that cash injection, probably six to twelve months, I think by twelve months we would be at the end of a tether if we didn’t get funding by then,” he said.
Snell, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central which encompasses the area, is keen to make sure the money is spent properly.
“It’s very much about the community being given the resources to shape its future,” he said.
“It’s the recognition that there are parts of Stoke on Trent that have been left behind for far to long”.
Jane Asworth, leader of the city council, wants the people of Bentilee to have their voices heard on how the financial support should be distributed.
She believes that the health services need to be improved as well as looking at ways to get people back into work.
“We have to help [people living in Bentilee] to reorganise there lives, to get back to work, because more money in the family budget is good for everyone,” Ashworth explained.
Referring to BV, Ashworth said: “The last thing we want is a positive, sociable organisation like this to be suffering.
“They need to be helped to be put on stable financial footing, with a good fundraising strategy, so they can carry on with what they do best”.
