Cuts to M3 Project’s funding in 2017

Lancashire County Council has recently confirmed proposals for further budget savings totalling £65m over the next 2 years, in addition to budget savings already announced earlier this year and previously.

A number of services provided by the Council will be affected, including the Supporting People (SP) funding programme providing housing support to vulnerable groups across the County, and including M3’s young people and young families.

It is proposed that LCC will cease its entire non-statutory provision SP provision from April 2016, a loss of up to £11.7m to supported and sheltered housing for single people, young people at risk, homeless families and those with mental health issues. Also affected will be refuges for women experiencing domestic violence, alarm services for elderly people and floating support services. Effectively, the entire SP programme of supported accommodation will cease, apart from a very small element that is deemed statutory.

Unfortunately, for M3 this means from March 2017 we will lose most, if not ALL of the funding for our accommodation and support for vulnerable young people in East Lancashire.

M3 staff and Trustees will be working hard over the next year to find funding for as much of our service as we can, but in a hostile funding climate and with many other organisations locally and in the County also seeking funding, it will be hard to fully replace the large amount funding we will lose ‘overnight’ in 2017.

We hope that M3 will be able to continue to provide some accommodation and support to young people around East Lancashire, as we have done over the past 12 years and will be keep our Householders, young people and partners informed about developments and our progress toward this.

In the meantime, please help us share details of our Christmas 2015 Appeal so we can start to bring in donations to fund our ongoing work.