Chesterfield volunteer centre faces an end to Macmillan funding

The Volunteer Centre Chesterfield and North East Derbyshire has been told by Macmillan Cancer Support that cash for a vital part of its work would be cut at the end of March.

Volunteers say they also face uncertainty about funding of their befriending scheme because of further cuts from Derbyshire County Council – although the authority has denied this is under threat.

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Centre manager Dave Radford said: “The main concern has been around cuts to our Macmillan-funded project which provides practical support for people with a life limiting condition.

“We appreciate that it can be difficult for funders to continue funding on an ongoing basis, but it was the speed with which this funding was withdrawn that has caused so many problems.

“We found out just before Christmas that funding would cease at the end of March, so this has given us just three months to provide an exit strategy for the clients we currently support and that isn’t ideal.

“We will probably lose a member of staff because of this and we only have four members to begin with so this is a really difficult time for us.”

Dave said he was disappointed at the way Macmillan had handled the situation.

“We have a new cancer centre at The Royal Hospital and yet we are removing services that would benefit that. It doesn’t make sense.

“We are desperate not to lose our befriending scheme as this has been supporting people for 20 years, we would like to see it continue to do that for another 20 years.”

Chesterfield Labour MP Toby Perkins has written a letter to Derbyshire County Council saying that cuts to the funding will mean the volunteer centre ‘can no longer sustain the Elderfriends service that they run’.

A spokesperson for Derbyshire County Council said: “We’re currently carrying out a consultation into how we fund infrastructure organisations that support the local community and voluntary sector.

“This is designed to develop a fairer and more consistent way of allocating funding and we’d like to hear from as many people as possible.

“Grants for befriending aren’t part of this review.”

Sue Sanderson, Macmillan partnership manager, said she was disappointed that the situation had caused ‘upset’.

"At the beginning of the Macmillan Safe & Sound Project and after a funding extension, both Macmillan and The Volunteer Centre agreed that the Macmillan grant would fund the project for a fixed term period only and we confirmed that this would come to an end in March 2020,” she said.

“The Safe and Sound project team were made aware of this again on November 21, 2019, four months before the end of the grant terms which state that Macmillan would give a minimum of three months’ notice.

“We have continued to work with the team at Safe and Sound to support them and an exit strategy was jointly developed, however further support was declined.”