THE organisers of a unique business creation scheme on a deprived Luton estate have written to multi-million pound organisations with a ‘polite appeal’ for £839,584 to get it going.
Glenn Jenkins, of Marsh Farm Outreach (MFO), says the group is looking for organisations which have received money from the estate to stump up for the project to go ahead.
The organisations being written to by MFO include project managers DTZ and civil engineering company Volker Fitzpatrick.
Mr Jenkins said: “If the multi-million pound profit companies did this it would be a real symbol of corporate social responsibility, of all those things which they say on their websites about working with communities.”
Mr Jenkins added that Luton mayor Tom Shaw had been asked to host a meeting at Luton Borough Council so that all parties could meet discuss to the issues.
The response from some of the organisations when the issue was broached with them by Business Monthly did not bode well for Mr Jenkins’ bid, however.
Claire Bishop, London and south east communications executive for project manager DTZ, said: “DTZ is employed by Marsh Farm Community Development Trust to project manage the delivery of the CERC (community building), acting upon the instructions of the Trust. DTZ has not been involved in decisions regarding the allocation of budgets at the Trust and we are therefore not in a position to discuss funding matters.”
Emma Young, of Volker Fitzpatrick, said: “It’s not for us to comment on budget issues.”
MFO was recently unsuccessful in a court attempt to stop Marsh Farm Community Development Trust (MFCDT) spending any remaining money in its budget on the Organisation Workshop (OW) project.
The MFCDT had overspent its budget by about the same amount as its own board had approved for use on the OW project. The MFCDT’s board had given its blessing to the project but officials later said it was unable to go ahead.
The OW would have used experienced local business people as mentors for long-term unemployed on the estate, using a model of community development brought in from Chile.
MFO believed the money, which had been approved by a government minister, would have given a kick-start to economic growth on the estate.
MFCDT’s annual report for 2009-2010 contains a forecast expenditure of £49.7million on the estate over the last 10 years. In 2009-10 financial year £138,604 was spent on business and employment, with advice, support and business grants given.
But Mr Jenkins said: “Marsh Farm’s unemployment now is worse than it was 10 years ago.”
He said the OW would have brought up to 67 full-time or 114 part-time jobs to the estate.
The OW project had the backing of people including TV chef and eco campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the Development Trusts Association (DTA). The DTA was due to project manage the OW scheme.
Farah Hidil, communications manager at DTA, said: “The Organisation Workshop project has the potential to create many new jobs for the unemployed in the area.”
A statement issued by MFCDT said: “After detailed examination of all the information made available to directors and consideration of its existing contractual commitments, the Board had no choice but to acknowledge, no matter what its wishes may have been, there was insufficient funding at that point to resource the OW project.”
MFCDT insisted that the 10-year New Deal for Communities programme had achieved a great number of good things over the past nearly 10 years. “It is believed that many of those tangible outcomes will have a positive and lasting legacy which local energy and initiatives can build on in future years,” it said.