Selby scheme will help town’s vulnerable (From York Press)

Selby scheme will help town’s vulnerable

9:01am Wednesday 3rd October 2012 in News By Dan Bean, dan.bean@thepress.co.uk

A NEW scheme has been launched in Selby to help the town’s vulnerable and elderly people.

The Selby Garden Enterprise is a not-for-profit scheme, backed by £50,000 from North Yorkshire County Council.

It will provide gardening services for the elderly and those unable to maintain their own properties, at a low cost, with proceeds funnelled back into the service. It will also provide horticultural training and vocational experience for people in the town, including those with learning difficulties and disabilities.

Peter Murphy, operations director of Groundwork, co-ordinators of the scheme, said it was “one of the most exciting projects we have been involved in for many years”.

Paul Varney, programme manager of Groundwork, said the service would provide a variety of skills to workers.

He said: “We’re offering training packages tailored to each individual’s needs, and hoping to do some fun workshops in the community working with our partners to use some of their facilities in the town. It’s about engaging and bringing everybody in and working together.”

North Yorkshire County Councillor Clare Wood, executive member for adult services, spoke at the launch on Monday, and said the project provided “services to those people who really are in need. It also gives individual training opportunities that mean something.”

Jo Boardman works with charities and social entprises throughout Yorkshire to help them find funding and investment, and has previously criticised the lack of social enterprises in the town to work with adults with learning difficulties.

She said: “This is exactly the sort of thing that is needed.

“Partnerships have to be about everyone working together but the whole point is it has to be profitable and sustainable. If it’s not making any money, it’s not going to be here in two years time.

“Groundwork is coming from a business perspective, and it has to be done like that.”