No sense of URGENCY

The Ulverston CAB closed completely unexpectedly from the viewpoint of those using it.
Those being helped with cases arrived at the office in Benson Street expecting further help in their urgent case - they were about to loose their home through not being able to handle their debt - something the CAB had been very effective in the past at solving - only to find the office closed with an impersonal notice in the window. " We deeply regret - - -blah,blah,blah.

Roger Lindsay had alerted us all to the likelihood of the office closing in November. John Dersley the then director of the CAB in Ulverston had decided back in July last year that the Ulverston office had to close. Yet what has happened since the closing three months ago has been extremely badly planned and carried out. Some of the former volunteers have become so disillusioned by the way the closing was handled that they refuse to re-engage. Promises of an immediate reopening of the Ulverston base were made yet three months later Jayne Kendall told me yesterday that this could happen in four to six week's time. Brilliantly designed and equipped offices stand empty adjacent to the town hall.

I am trying to contact a councillor who is 'on the case' but there isn't one. Even Mark Wilson, the town, district and now county councillor who stated back in January that 'everything would be alright' has to take time to find out what the current situation is with a phone call when asked and then the answer received is superficial.

Apparently the previous office is to be taken over again. The situation is apparently waiting for a lease to be signed.

I ask myself if this was an office offering financial services to the wealthy on say how to invest their stocks and shares would there be more than a day's delay yet in this case we have waited a hundred days. You get the feeling that because we're dealing with people that can't cope with this kind of thing then there is no urgency. Even by contrast if their house had collapsed around them we would insist that they get rescued instantly.

This is not an instant death but a death by depression and frustration, a death by severe anger and injustice, a death inflicted by callous evil people who seek to make money out of others that don't understand how to handle the system. People who sadly believed there used to be people to help them as they had helped others.

Is Ulverston in fact a caring town?

I've written to Mark Wilson and fellow Cllr Clough who showed a CAB concern three months ago, to find out.

I shall report back at the weekend with the answers they give.

I fear that the answer will be more of "We don't know but the system is coping and the office may be open in six weeks time"

But then it may not. Welcome to caring Ulverston.