It’s unanimous! Ross-on-Wye town councillors will not take the closure of their Citizen’s Advice Bureau lying down and say they will go it alone if necessary.
Former mayor Councillor Gordon Lucas attended last week’s meeting at the Ross CAB which was billed as an event to show how the centre worked.
“I am not interested in seeing how it works and I think it is quite disgraceful,” he said at Monday night’s town council meeting.
“They don’t want to talk about the future and what they would be doing regarding services to Ross-on-Wye.
“But we did put them under pressure and they did discuss these things,” said Deputy Mayor Mike Jennings, also at the meeting.
Management of Herefordshire bureaux said they would attend a town council meeting and hold a question session but Councillor Jennings said he got the impression they would be doing nothing.
“We can’t sit back and let this happen. I put forward the suggestion if they are short of money they can rationalise and make cuts across the board at all of the county’s CABs.
“I still think they should do this, this is the only good management decision they should be making. If they won’t do this I think we need to seriously question the management,” said Councillor Jennings.
Councillor Jenny Hyde asked whether the management was ever quizzed about why they failed to warn the council of their financial worries, in time for them to help.
Councillor Jennings replied: “There was never any satisfactory answer to that. Once again, the impression I got was that the management just woke up one morning and decided they had no money.”
According to Councillor Jennings, £120,000 is given in grants from Herefordshire Council each year to go towards the county’s bureaux.
“I think we’ve got to say Ross has been treated appallingly. We have discussed the idea that we could give them a little bit of space here in the council offices but that didn’t meet much success,” said Mayor Phil Cutter.
“So what do we do now? There is no advice in Ross for anyone. We might all need it one day. Some people who need the advice can’t use a phone and can’t afford transport.
“If you need advice you need it there and then. We need to make it clear we will not accept this closure.” he added.
It was resolved the council would approach authority figures in the town who have worked at the CAB such as former CAB president Joyce Thomas MBE who last week told the Journal she was ‘livid’ about the closure.
On the advice of such stalwarts the council will try to forge a future for the CAB service, even if it means setting up on their own.
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