Ryedale families "devastated" to lose promised funding

North Yorkshire Council say the District Council wrongly awarded grants

Author: Kathy GreenPublished 16th Jun 2023

A North Yorkshire charity supporting disabled children says it's devastated - after finding out it won't get almost a million pounds of funding it'd been promised.

Ryedale Special families is one of several groups awarded money by the old District Council - but now the new North Yorkshire Council has taken over and says the decision was wrong.

Lisa Keenan is from the charity and says it doesn't seem fair: "To be told that is has been assessed again, to essentially be told it's not high priority, and it isn't being supported is a massive blow to us."

The charity wanted to use the money to open a new base: "How are we now going to find that money, how are we going to now move forward, we are absolutely to get this building going and to get this progress, and now we've got to think how on earth are we going to find that money, where on earth is it going to come from."

The charity has started a petition calling for a re think.

In a statement North Yorkshire Council say: 'Members of North Yorkshire Council’s executive will meet on Tuesday next week (June 20) when they will be asked to approve that CIL money previously promised to 11 community groups and schools by the former Ryedale District Council to instead be channelled into the school projects.

Councillors will be told that the groups had been wrongly promised this cash – but the organisations will be offered help in finding alternative sources of funding for their schemes.

As part of local government reorganisation, national legislation stated that certain types of expenditure put forward by the previous seven district and borough councils in North Yorkshire needed the consent of the then-county council.

However, three days before the new North Yorkshire Council was launched, Ryedale District Council asked for consent for the 11 CIL schemes. Because it was so close to the launch day on April 1, the district council was told this consent was not possible and the schemes would be considered by the new council’s executive.

North Yorkshire Council’s leader, Cllr Carl Les, said: “I met with the leadership of Ryedale District Council on more than one occasion, and wrote to all the politicians at the authority urging them not to make promises that we might not be able to keep.

“However, it appears that despite my warnings that these schemes might not go forward, the groups were wrongly told the allocations had approval and we are now in a position where we have to say no.”

The money is now earmarked to be spent on a proposed new school at Norton Lodge as well as renovations at Welburn Hall School, a residential school for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

“The proposed new school at Norton Lodge and the refurbishment of Welburn Hall School, a residential school, for SEND children are both set to benefit from this money."

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