Bath youth schemes hit by shock 400% rent rise
A Bath youth club and disabled children’s charity are being forced to look for new homes after the council put up their rent by 400 per cent.
The Enrich Youth Project and the Bath Junior Gateway Club both use the Weston Children’s Centre, in Penn Hill Road, as a base for weekly meetings.
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Clive Bennett
But Bath and North East Somerset Council has told them that from April their rent for one session a week will be rising from £400 a year to £2,000 – a fivefold increase.
Community youth worker Clive Bennett said his organisation, which is run by All Saints Church, in Weston, had taken over a service previously run by B&NES in 2010.
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He said: “As the local church, who were doing some work with local young people at the time, we stepped in to deliver youth work in the area – a service the local authority really should be delivering.”
Mr Bennett added that he did not know how the church was going to afford the new rent levels and would have to look at scaling back its operation.
The Bath Junior Gateway Club, which provides activities and support for disabled and disadvantaged children and teenagers, has been using the centre for more than 20 years.
Leader Wayne Brooks said they worked with around 75 young people and would be unlikely to continue if the rent increase was implemented.
He said: “We are already struggling as a charity at the moment, so if the rent does go up we are not going to be able to run for much longer.”
Both groups have the backing of Councillor Colin Barrett (Con, Weston), who said the work they were doing was a classic example of the Big Society and it was “crazy” for the rent to be put up by such a huge amount.
A B&NES spokesman said the local authority had been subsidising the centre in the past but could not afford to do so any more.
He said: “At present, the council heavily subsidises the hire of children’s centre rooms to outside organisations and community groups. This subsidy is in the region of 80 per cent per session. We have not adjusted the charge for room hire in over five years.
“At a time when one of the council’s key priorities is to the protect frontline services that are highly valued by local people, such as keeping open our eight children’s centres, we must look carefully at ways to help balance the books.”
He added B&NES was now offering a temporary concession until October 1, when the full rent increase would come into effect.
7 Comments
by grey_warrior
Sunday, February 24 2013, 5:52PM
“closing this type of support is disgusting but i am not suprised any coucil that does this and pulls funding for the only disabled independent representative body on march 31st days before the attack on disabled benifits their web page http://tinyurl.com/agkjjfo plus a drive to reduce disabled bays.
and chooses to spend a around £500000 on 20 per hour signs that are unenforcable after a sham consultation that does not have a mandate, and even the supporters of this did not understand that it was going to depend on the same drivers that speed through their steets to out of politness slow down to this speed yeh pull the othe one.”
by Imp-Act
Thursday, February 21 2013, 10:05PM
“The GAIN on rising prices is in the long run a big fat ZERO! Just take the housing market!”
by wheelie_bin
Thursday, February 21 2013, 11:40AM
“Not such a sure start for some”
by rrfrrf
Thursday, February 21 2013, 11:15AM
“B&NES Council, protecting frontline services....by forcing them to relocate to somewhere where that might actually be true.”
by Dave_Weston
Thursday, February 21 2013, 9:54AM
“This has all the makings of the parking charges "brainwave" all over again - shove the charges up, drive away income rather than increase it and then wonder why you have a big hole in your budget (in the case of the transport budget currently £1.4m). Funds are tight and political decisions have to be made which is perhaps another issue - assuming outside users have unlimited funds to pay more is a poor judgement.”
by harveysMaster
Thursday, February 21 2013, 9:19AM
“Makes perfect sense doesn't it. Like many landlords they seem unable to see that if they put up rents too much the tenant moves out and the property remains empty and they get no rent. Why not keep it the same or lower and at least get some rent. Maybe that is why I am not a landlord!”
by Viscount_V
Thursday, February 21 2013, 9:08AM
“Frankly disgusting that the Lib Dems are once again targetting the young and vulnerable to facilitate the budget cuts. At what price our council tax freeze??”