Story by Mark Lankshear
This month Kevin Hartney, the new Chair of the Burngreave Community Action Forum (BCAF) used his first address to a Quarterly Forum to make a scathing attack on New Deal, saying it had marginalised BCAF and is undermining its work.
Kevin claimed the Forum had a direct link to the community, giving credibility and legitimacy to its decisions, but that New Deal’s accountability was ‘insubstantial’.
During a heated debate the claims were strongly denied by John Clark, New Deal Chief Exec, who said:
“New Deal does substantial work to consult with the community. We distribute information to every house, publish it in libraries and run the Information Shop and Theme Group meetings. The New Deal Community Reps are elected by the whole community and put in many voluntary hours making themselves available at their surgeries and public meetings.”
New Deal’s elections are being held in July and you can register to vote now (see pages 18–19). The record breaking 52% turnout in the 2001 New Deal Election slumped to 23% in 2003 and this year’s turnout will be closely watched.
BCAT AGM
After the resignations surrounding last year’s BCAT AGM (see Messenger 38) this year’s was another tense meeting. In her report to the meeting Chair Lynda Kenyon joined the criticism of ‘those who hold the purse strings’, saying they didn’t appreciate BCAT’s work. Lynda’s chairmanship was challenged but she was re-elected.
The Messenger has received a letter complaining about behaviour of BCAT members at the meeting, but the accusations have been flatly denied. As the Trust runs its own complaints procedure, we
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