"COMMUNITY GROUPS MUST NOT LOSE OUT IN MOVE TO SINGLE COUNCIL"

10.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 16th Apr 2008

Stephen Gilbert, the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for St Austell & Newquay, has warned that local community, voluntary and sport groups across Cornwall are facing financial uncertainty and is campaigning to ensure they don't lose out during the move to a single Council.

Stephen Gilbert said: "At the moment the district councils play a key role in helping to support really worthwhile local groups with funding.

"Here in mid Cornwall, for example, Restormel Borough Council handed out nearly £150,000 of funding to help local voluntary and community groups in 2007.

"But with Restormel and the other district councils being abolished next year many of these groups are facing real uncertainty about their future funding.

"This is an issue that affects organisations of all shapes and sizes from the very large like the Eden Project, right down to lunch clubs in villages like Grampound and Nanpean."

"I am very concerned that some of the smaller projects simply may not continue without funding and it is important they are not left facing a financial black hole."

"We have a year to go, but it is important to get this right. I have written to the One Cornwall team to ask them to consider the future grant funding arrangements of the new Council as a matter of urgency and have also written to all the community groups in Restormel that have benefited from grants to find out what support they may need in the future."