Published: 09 February 2012
by GEORGIA GRAHAM

A TWO-DECADE-OLD service which takes the elderly on trips and visits is facing closure after the withdrawal of council funds.

The Good Neighbour scheme, based in Ingestre Road, Kentish Town, works by sending volunteers to the homes of the elderly.

Camden Council funding is due to run out in June.

Kate Batsford, 94, of Gospel Oak, uses a wheelchair but the scheme means she can join her sister Lucy Day, 91, on day trips to the countryside or to the ­garden centre to stock up on bulbs for the spring.

“I wouldn’t see anyone otherwise,” she said. “It is lonely. You just don’t see anyone for days and it is nice to have someone to talk to.

“When I haven’t seen anyone for a while I look out of the kitchen window just to see the people passing. People think you are being nosey – but you’re not, you just want to see people.”

The sisters, who have lived in Camden all their lives, are determined to live independently in the flats where they have been for four decades.

Mrs Batsford, who was a cleaner at Gospel Oak School for 27 years, says that the service is a lifeline in her increas­ingly isolated life.

“I won’t have the pleasure of going out,” she said. “I just can’t walk very far and if they don’t pick me up I won’t be able to go anywhere.”

Spencer Woodcock is the Good Neighbour scheme’s only full-time member of staff, a post paid for out of council core funding of £32,000.

He said: “We have volunteers who are trained, who are CRB-checked and who are OK to work with elderly individuals who are vulnerable. It takes a very long time to build something like this up. If it goes it will be very, very hard to build it up again.”

Mr Woodcock is looking into private donations to cover the shortfall, but says the char­itable trusts already approached are “be­sieged” with worthy causes suffering from government cuts.

He is concerned about the effect on the elderly.

“My biggest fear really is letting them all down and not being there for them when they trust us to be there,” he said. “That’s what I am really scared of.”

A council spokeswoman said: “Given the pressures on all council budgets, we have had to focus our investment and give priority to ser­vices that support people who have critical and substantial needs.

“In common with many similar services, the Ingestre Road Good Neighbour scheme was given notice of expiry of funding 12 months ago. We have also given them three months of additional transitional funding up to June 30 to give them more time to find alternative funding streams.

“There is £150k available from the Camden People’s Fund to support Good Neighbour schemes to remodel.”

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