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Reprieve for drugs centre after IWCA intervention
The Blackbird Leys Community Action and Development centre (formerly Communities Against Drugs) is now set to stay open following calls by
the IWCA for extra funds at the South East Area Committee meeting. Oxford City Council announced last month that it would not be providing
funding for the drugs centre after the project’s three-year cycle of government money, totalling £60,000, ran out.
Earlier this week, however, a rescue package was announced, with a group of organisations including the council and police providing
£12,000 to tide the project over until the end of the year.
The IWCA, which was involved in the original ‘Communities Against Drugs’ steering group, has previously voiced concerns about the short-term
nature of the project’s funding (see earlier articles:
Communities against drugs … with or without the community,
Too little, too late, As end draws near for SRB funding will Blackbird Leys be left
high and dry?).
Last month the Oxford Mail, despite sending a reporter and photographer along, decided to bury news of the IWCA anti-drugs patrol—the day’s
top story on both Central News and Radio Oxford. Earlier this week the paper ran a front page article on the temporary reprieve for CAD, but
the IWCA, which had instigated discussions about the project at the Area Committee (at which Mail reporter Matt Wilkinson was present) and
campaigned for it’s continuation, was once again completely cut out of the story.
Instead, in a display of rank opportunism, New Labour councillor Rae Humberstone, who has previously shown no interest whatsoever in the
drugs issue, was wheeled out for a photo opportunity (‘Doomed drugs centre saved’, 15 August). In light of these recent developments it
would be foolish to rule out the possibility that the Oxford Mail, in collaboration with the various local authorities is working to an
anti-IWCA, anti-working class agenda.
However, in seeking to undermine the IWCA, Labour has finally been forced to come clean about the extent of the problem highlighted in the Leys Independent for the last four years, with Rae Humberstone telling the paper, ‘There is no hiding from the fact there’s a serious drug problem in Blackbird Leys.’ It remains to be seen if this admission will prompt Labour to free up city council funds to seriously tackle the crack and heroin scourge.
Leys Independent, issue 29, August 2005
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