‘Chill-Out’ talks with Council Leader and CEO ‘positive’ but no change as yet.

Today, ‘Chill-Out’ co-organisers Shirley Kennedy and Pete Hinchliffe together with Father Paul Daly met with Council Leader Colin Lambert and RMBC CEO Jim Taylor to lay out our main areas of concern in relation to the provision of and access to emergency homeless beds in the borough.

We gave several ‘case-study’ examples of individuals who had been failed by or who had encountered serious problems with the operation of the new system. We laid out our reservations about the ‘Dial-A-Bed’ service and also spoke of our dissatisfaction with some of the accommodation being offered which was, in our view, unsuitable and often situated far from the borough itself. An hotel in Manchester was cited as an example.

It was discussed as to whether or not some of the problems thus far experienced could be put down to ‘teething-troubles’ and whilst we agreed that some issues may be due to this, we reiterated the fact that many were due to more fundamental problems due to service cuts.

Jim Taylor promised to go away and provide some figures and also to look at the cases related to individuals that had been provided by ‘Chill-Out’.

The meeting was cordial and Cllr Lambert and Jim Taylor listened to us and did not merely sit there defending RMBC’s Policy. We acknowledged the difficulties posed by all councils due to severe cuts from central government but all agreed that despite this, the council had a statutory duty to fulfil.

It was agreed that a line of communication had been established between us and the council and that we will meet again soon to give Cllr Lambert and Jim Taylor time to study our concerns and get some facts and figures and explore possible remedies.

After the meeting, Shirley, Pete and Paul held a short feedback session and whilst we agreed that the meeting had been positive, it did not give us any mandate to recommend that the sleep-out at the Town Hall be abandoned at this time and that it should still go ahead as planned. We will report more fully to the wider group at our meeting next Tuesday when it is hoped that feedback from Council Officers will be available.