Darlington at risk of becoming an 'advice desert'
The town's Citizens Advice Bureau are facing brutal cuts to their services and are asking the council to reconsider.
There are claims vulnerable people in Darlington will be left with nowhere to go if the local Citizens Advice Bureau close their doors.
The service, who help over 10,000 people a year, could have their funding slashed by ÂŁ104,000 as part of local council cuts.
They've collected over 4,000 personal stories and signatures from the public in support of saving the service.
Today their Chief Executive Neeraj Sharma met with Councillor Andrew Scott to hand them over.
It's as part of a public consultation process about the proposed budget cuts, before a decision is made by the full council.
Neeraj Sharma said: "We deal with 10,000 people a year. That is a phenomenal number of advice issues.
"But they are the real issues that without support you're not going to be able to put food on your table, you're not going to be able to heat your home.
"Last year we supported 600 people who were at risk of being made homeless.
"There is a real fear that if we do lose our funding, Darlington will become an advice desert."
Councillor Andrew Scott is the Portfolio holder for Health and Partnerships.
He said: "The council is faced with a position where over the next five years we have to save ÂŁ10mil.
"We can only really fund statuatory services and unfortunately, the grant to CAB is an unstatuatory service.
"I find it incredibly uncomfortable that we are faced with this decision.
"In other areas of budget proposals like the library, the awful position we have is looking at buildings compared with people."