Milford Mercury | Local News, Sport & Entertainment

New info inflames £100k grant row

From the Milford Mercury, first published Thursday 21st Apr 2005.

INFORMATION obtained under the Freedom of Information Act has fuelled claims that inadequate council support scuppered a bid to develop two Milford communities.

Recently, the Welsh Assembly turned down a bid for around £100,000 which would have provided a development worker, part-time youth worker and resource centre for Howarth Close and Meyler Crescent for three years. Well-advanced plans for a play area, and the Howarth Close residents association both dissolved as a result.

But Bill Roberts, cabinet member for housing and community safety, took issue with the area's former development worker Joyce Walters, who said that one reason for the failure of the bid was that the council hadn't provided the Assembly with enough information about what had been achieved up to March last year.

He said the council "were fully supportive of the bid being submitted by the associations and provided appropriate letters of support and other information promptly when requested to do so."

Now, that `other information' has surfaced, thanks to the FoI Act - and Mrs Walters feels it supports her view.

One key piece of information is an `end-of-year' report intended to summarise what had been achieved in terms of community development in Howarth Close and Meyler Crescent from April 1 to March 31 last year.

"We met all our targets and with just one year's funding, we couldn't have done any more" said Mrs Walters, "and I don't think this report is anywhere near sufficient.

"There's nothing to say that we had secured funding for the play area from Texaco and Communities First, but the main thing is that it just says that the two associations are working together.

"I would have expected it to highlight the fact that the two associations had formally signed up to a partnership. This was a groundbreaking initiative that had not been done anywhere else in Wales! I can't believe it's not even mentioned. I really would have expected them to show a bit more support for the associations."

A council spokesman responded that the links between Howarth and Meyler were "identified" in both the end March 2004 report and the end December 2003 report.

He added: "On the two occasions that Joyce was putting the bid together on behalf of the community, she requested letters of support from us which we promptly provided."

The council also maintain that Mrs Walters "actually part-wrote the reports."

Mrs Walters says she did not write any of the final report, just supplied a copy of survey results.

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