City funding cuts put future of Muirhouse centre under threat

Published on Saturday 20 December 2008 10:11

A COMMUNITY centre opened just eight years ago at a cost of £800,000 will be forced to close unless council funding cuts are reversed.

The Muirhouse Millennium Centre is one of dozens of under-threat organisations following changes to the way Fairer Scotland Fund (FSF) grants are distributed around the city.

Traditionally worse-off areas, such as the Forth ward, which includes Granton, Muirhouse, Drylaw and Pilton, are losing out to more affluent areas such as the city centre and nearby Almond ward, which covers Cramond and Silverknowes.

Groups in the Forth ward, including the Muirhouse Millennium Centre, have seen their awards slashed by 500,000 as the city council tries to spread the grant awards more evenly.

The Millennium Centre was built in 2000 using lottery cash and hosts dozens of community, youth and elderly group events.

City leaders are sticking by the redistribution of funding, claiming it will help better tackle "pockets" of poverty and health inequality. But at a charged council meeting, they agreed to look again at ways of getting other funding to help make up the shortfall.

If any extra money can be found for the threatened groups then it will be announced at the next meeting of the Forth Neighbourhood Partnership in January.

Peter Airlie, acting manager of the Muirhouse Millennium Centre, said: "This is a centre that was built and opened with public money less than eight years ago and now we face having to close it – that is just madness.

"The facilities are there, we just need the money to run and maintain them – we are talking about hundreds of people losing out here and a 800,000 community centre sitting empty."

Last year, the Forth ward received 1.5 million, but that will fall to 1m. Meanwhile, areas like the south-west of the city, which traditionally received virtually nothing, will get around 600,000 per year.

Edinburgh West MP John Barrett and MSP Margaret Smith sent a joint letter to their Lib Dem colleagues at the City Chambers raising concerns about the cuts.

It said:

"There needs to be a thorough appraisal of the impact the funding differences will have on services and local jobs."

Malcolm Chisholm, Labour MSP for Edinburgh North and Leith, said: "This is the worst set of cuts I have ever seen in some 17 years as an MP or MSP.

Even if this index they have used to reach this decision is right, you cannot expect organisations like this to take cuts of up to 37 per cent in just one year."