Lepton: Men's social group in Yorkshire village misses out on council funding promised to them after late U-turn

Yesterday (February 14), Almondbury ward councillors had verbally agreed to give the group in the village near Huddersfield hundreds of pounds worth of funding, but their plans were dashed later that day when an email was sent to all councillors explaining that they cannot spend any more of their ward budgets in the current year.

Each of Kirklees’ 23 wards is allocated an annual budget of £20,000 to be spent by local councillors on issues and priorities in their areas. The recently published draft budget proposes that the amount be slashed in half to make a £230,000 saving in the next financial year.

To the dismay of the councillors and despite the prior agreement, it has been confirmed that Lepton Men’s Group will not get its much-needed funding as an application had not been submitted in time. The group gives men a place to socialise for two hours every Wednesday and organises events.

One of the group’s organisers, Shirley Taylor explained that the group’s numbers have grown from eight last year to 22 this year, demonstrating its importance to the local community. She added: “We have trips out and do pie and pea lunch and Christmas lunch, we also have speakers come and visit.”

Cllr Bernard McGuin (Con) said the council’s decision made him “really upset”. He continued: “It’s disappointing that we can’t spend our allocated funds for the year. The situation will be even worse next year when they cut the budgets from £20k to £10k.”

Cllr Alison Munro (Lib Dems) had also agreed to back the funding plans and said: “I agreed yesterday morning to an application for £500 for the men’s group, but I’d also asked an officer to ring-fence funds for projects going forwards.

“I’d recently made a suggestion for the following: money to be ring-fenced for Christmas trees for 2024, contribution to the Christmas lights switch-on event, the Almondbury Jazz Festival, Friends of Tolson for future storage, the Carnegie Building, and the Ravensknowle Gala.

“We were going to discuss this at our next meeting in March, but all that has gone now, we haven’t got that money.

“We’ll only get £10k for the whole ward going forward. Obviously we’ve got 50 percent of what we had, that isn’t going to go very far.”

Cllr Munro explained that as well as supporting projects within their own wards, councillors are also asked to help those elsewhere in the borough. She added: “They’re all going to suffer. All those really good charitable social enterprises are going to really suffer. I worry about how they’re going to survive in the future.

“Compared to other wards, we spend our money quite well. We probably don’t have as much left in our kitty as other wards.

“The council is in dire straits and it’s having to claw back funds.”

According to Cllr McGuin, another project that could be impacted is the Food Share Programme at St Michael’s Church, Almondbury. The councillor said he’d requested £350 for the cause last week.

He added: “They need the money for the food share programme and they were going to run a drop-in cafe. A lot of people need a place to go to char and socialise and not have to worry about paying for a cup of coffee.”