With concern growing over threats to voluntary groups using the Burton Stone Community Centre, Westfield LibDem candidate Andrew Waller has called for the grants to local community centres to be reinstated.

In the Westfield area, both the Foxwood and Chapelfields community centres have seen their grants cut by the Labour Council.

Both centres are now relying entirely on the work of volunteers.

The committees at both centres are working very hard to keep them open but, in the long term, both would benefit if an annual grant of £15,000 was reinstated.

This would allow them to employ a part time caretaker and expand use of the facilities.

Former Labour Leader David Scott claimed on Thursday that “There is not one member of this (Labour) Cabinet I would offer a proper job to, not that many of them know what a proper job is”.

The £14,000 a year that these, apparently ineffective, Cabinet members draw in salary payments would be better spent on sustaining local community centres.