An important website to help launch a pioneering new fund to improve lives in our area has confusing graphics, and unclear information.
The matter was drawn to the attention of local councillors by the ‘News’ after asking interested local groups wanting to apply for the fund to go to the following website www.northayrshire.community
Cllr. Gallagher agreed: “It is presented in a clumsy format, and it is easy to miss the link to the funding page. It could be better laid out, and I will certainly have a word with the community planning officers to see if it can be better presented.”
Conservative councillor Tom Marshall also said that the website in its current format was unacceptable and needed replacing, and SNP Cllr. Alan Hill also said he would be making representations on the lack of clarity, and was unhappy that the town of Skelmorlie was excluded from the list of north coast towns represented.
Meetings are taking place in the Arran Room at West Kilbride Community Centre on Tuesday 20 and Wednesday 21 February between 6pm and 7pm to discuss the new investment fund which is making £100,000 available for local groups to apply for. The Tuesday meeting will look at young people, stress and anxiety, and the Wednesday meeting is looking at older people and isolation.
Cllr. Hill said: “I welcome this one off funding. It is important that we use this money to make a difference and ideally to do, or provide, something which does not already exist. We need to take some time to find the right things to spend this on and ideally to use it to lever in yet more lottery and other funding.
“Our local priorities revolve around young people and also loneliness and social isolation among our older residents. Recently published statistics also reveal that a staggering 1 in 5 of our children in the North Coast are classified as living in poverty.”
The North Coast and Cumbraes Locality Partnership - the localised branch of North Ayrshire Council covering the North Coast of Largs, Fairlie, Skelmorlie, Millport and West Kilbride, is behind the funding event.