Cobain slams closure of Belfast advice centres

North Belfast Ulster Unionist Fred Cobain has slammed the closure of seven community advice centres in the Belfast area because of lack of funding as “scandalous”.

The assembly member for north Belfast said the closure of seven advice centres had left the area with only two remaining facilities.

“These centres deal with some of the most socially excluded and disadvantaged people in our society, " said Mr Cobain.

“The people who will suffer are those who can least afford to. These centres work actively with the social security agency and others to ensure that people get the help and benefits they need. They have a critical role to play in this regard and the loss of these services will undermine governments to tackle social disadvantage,” he added.

Mr Cobain said the loss of these seven advice centres represented 950 advice hours lost to the public every week.

“That means more than 30,000 people will no longer have access to independent advice services across the city,” he added.

Mr Cobain said he feared that the loss of such expertise and quality standards in advice provision would give rise to unregulated advice service and produce knock on effects particularly in social security.

“We have also a new Housing Bill and many other reforms and initiatives in the pipeline but I am concerned that this significant loss of advice services will have a negative impact on the rollout of these reforms and more importantly on the public’s understanding of the changes.”

Only two centres in North Belfast are remaining open, the Vine Centre and the Lower North Belfast Community Centre; two in West Belfast, one in the south of the city with no independent centres in East Belfast.

(AMcE)