Cash crisis ends 18 years of support for women

From the Amesbury Journal, first published Thursday 16th Oct 2003.

THE Well Woman Centre in Salisbury, which has offered help and advice to thousands of women in south Wiltshire since it opened 18 years ago, is to close at the end of the year, due to a lack of funds.

For most of this financial year, the centre, in Castle Street, has struggled to meet its running costs and has been desperately trying to raise funds.

In 2000, it was celebrating a National Lottery grant of £181,000 over three years - its biggest cash handout ever. And three years before that, it received £100,000 from the Lottery, again over three years.

But since that money dried up in March this year, the centre has fought to maintain its services on less than half its previous year's budget and with half the number of paid staff, said Alison Leacock, chairman of the management committee.

She announced the decision on Friday.

"Friday was a horrible day," she said. "I got very upset - I have been with the centre for eight years and it has been my life.

"But the new financial year is getting nearer and we have no money, bar the amounts we get from Salisbury district council and the primary care trust.

"They amount to £15,000 but we need £50,000.

"We cannot use our reserves to carry on because we have to have money put by for redundancies and closing the centre."

As a Salisbury-based charity, the centre was limited in the organisations to which it could go for funds, she explained.

"We knew it would happen sooner or later," she added.

She said that those involved with the centre could take comfort from the fact that it "had changed the lives of so many women for the better".

The centre would ensure that those having counselling would be able to finish their sessions and, over the next three months, it would direct clients to other agencies and services in the area.

She said she hoped that groups such as the domestic violence group and the eating disorders group would find new meeting places and continue their work.

"It is all heartbreaking but I am trying to be positive about it," she said.

She said this year's Christmas meal would be made "as special as possible" and she thanked all those who had been involved in the centre since its inception, the volunteers and fundraisers, training and volunteer co-ordinator Annie Clacey and centre co-ordinator Sylvia Wright.

The centre is hoping to find an organisation in Salisbury to house its books and make them available to the public. And any money left over after closure will be donated to charities supporting women.

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