Date: 02/08/2007
High Peak Borough Council has awarded New Mills and District Volunteer Centre a grant of £10,000 to help with developing an established volunteer car scheme.
Councillor Andrew Bingham - High Peak Borough Council's Executive Member for Social and Community Development, together with the former portfolio-holder Councillor John Pritchard and Deputy Leader, Councillor Tony Ashton, paid a visit to the New Mills centre last week to hand over the cheque to the manager - Dorothy Scapens and Secretary to the Board of Trustees, Norman Heald.
The grant, which is from the Borough Council's allocation of Supporting People funding from Derbyshire County Council, will be used to develop ways of joint working with Buxton and Glossop Volunteer Centres, and to fund hardware, software and professional expertise in creating a database to manage the voluntary Community Car Scheme.
Supporting People grants provide, or contribute to the provision of, welfare services for older people and vulnerable adults. The grants are used to meet the objectives of the Supporting People programme, mainly by helping people in their own homes or as independently as possible.
New Mills Volunteer Centre provides a valuable service in many ways throughout New Mills. They approached Councillors Ashton and Bingham because they were left disappointed by the removal of Lottery funding that they had previously enjoyed. Both Councillors, together with Councillor Pritchard, who was the portfolio holder at the time, were determined to help in whatever way they could. This £10,000 is the result of their efforts.
Councillor Andrew Bingham said: "Supporting people within the community is one of the Council's priorities. So we are delighted to be able to fund the Voluntary Car Scheme."