A DECISION to refuse giving financial support to the Wellbeing Winsford project has caused outrage among some members of Winsford Town Council.

Winsford Labour Group has been accused of not valuing the wellbeing of its residents as a result of unanimously voting against a proposal at last week’s annual budget meeting, asking for the council to ‘take ownership’ of the project.

In absence of Wellbeing Winsford founder, Cllr Ailsa Gaskill-Jones, her father and fellow town council Liberal Democrat member, Cllr Malcolm Gaskill, made the proposal at the budget meeting.

Cllr Gaskill said: “Winsford Town Council Labour group unanimously rejected a proposal put by me that the council should now take ownership of the project Wellbeing Winsford and include its funding in the annual budget as a part of the council’s core strategy.

“The Labour group counter proposal was that the Wellbeing project should apply each year to the grants committee without any guarantee of financial support.

“The begging bowl approach was supported by all of the Labour councillors only the Liberal Democrats voted against.

“In the budget every year a sum is set aside for the council-owned allotments. This year £10,000 has been allocated.

“Clearly allotments are more important to the Labour Party than the health and wellbeing of its residents.”

Cllr Tony Hooton, Labour councillor and chair of the finance committee, argued that the proposal was not clear and gave reassurance that the Labour group supports the project.

“We do support the Wellbeing Winsford project very much,” Cllr Hooton said. “In fact, I’d even say that some of our councillors think more of it that Cllr Gaskill - I think he’s just supporting it because his daughter is running it.

“We had to make some difficult decisions with this year’s budget and with the reduction in the grant we get from CWAC, we had to think of how to bridge that gap.

“I’m quite sure that when the grants committee look at it, they will get some money. Whether they get the lot, I don’t know.

“But there was also a dispute as to how much they wanted, the amount kept changing.

“We had a difficult budget to set and we are quite happy to look at this, but we are not prepared to be caught out on the hop when we weren’t told what the funding would be for.

“As to the allotments – that’s capital funding and couldn’t be used for this project. Plus the allotment rent will go up by £10 per plot so the expenditure will not exceed the income.”

Cllr Gaskill-Jones also contacted the Guardian and highlighted the importance of the project with some statistics in Winsford.

Among them were 20.5 per cent of children leaving Primary School in Winsford are obese and 28.1 per cent of adults in Wharton are obese.

Cllr Gaskill-Jones said: “I am extremely disappointed that Labour councillors on Winsford Town Council rejected a proposal to make the health of the town one of the council’s key strategic aims on a permanent basis.

“Wellbeing Winsford does not receive any formal funding despite its activities featuring on the council’s own Events and Early Wins Action plan.

“The response from the Labour group was that Wellbeing Winsford (a Town Council led initiative) should apply to the Town Council grants committee for any funding.

“While this is an approach I am happy to adopt if necessary I feel it is completely unacceptable and sends out an incredibly disappointing signal as to where the Council’s priorities lie.”