Communities show that there is interest in supporting local services

A meeting at County Hall, Exeter, has drawn around 100 members of the public from communities across Devon, with a common interest in helping to support local public services.

The meeting follows widespread consultations by Devon County Council on the futures of a number of its services, including youth services and libraries, and which invited communities to respond with ideas as to how some services could be sustained.

The Council has so far received about 160 such ‘expressions of interest’ from individuals and groups, and Councillor Barry Parsons, the Council’s Cabinet Member with responsibility for community engagement, says that the response level sends a clear message that there is growing appetite to support some services that the Council is financially no longer able to provide itself.

“The meeting, which was well-attended, proves that there’s a  momentum in local communities to help support local services,” says Cllr Parsons.

“By 2017, our funding from the Government will have reduced by a third, from £600million to £400million.   It means that having first made savings in our back office, we’re having to make additional savings to services that communities are used to having.  We can’t afford to deliver them in the same way anymore and we’ve said that the public will have to do some things themselves, and that we will work with them.

“It’s very early days, and over the next weeks and months we will be talking to individuals and groups who have expressed a willingness to get involved, to work up proposals that we hope will secure some services in future.

“What’s clear from today’s first small steps, is that people in many communities are ready and prepared to work with us, and that Devon County Council will do everything we can to involve communities in decisions about their local services.”