A response to Nub News Article titled "Radstock Town Council hears complaints about Big Local money being invested in Hope House Surgery" which is here:

The Radstock & Westfield Big Local Partnership would like to address a number of points from this Radstock Nub News article, as we feel there has been misrepresentation of how we are investing community funds…

We are granting (no more than) £250,000 to deliver around 1,200 hours of health and wellbeing programmes annually, for the next 20 years, from a dedicated space within the new multi-purpose Hope House Centre.

This had strong community support and was in response to the many health related issues that are having an increasingly devastating effect in our community. By giving our community the opportunity to access health-benefiting services that they want, over such a long period, we anticipate that this programme will make a significant and lasting contribution to the wellbeing of all generations in our community.

We would like to emphasise that the doctors will not be able to use this as a money-making enterprise for their business – and nor do they want to!

Furthermore, it's important to make the distinction that Radstock & Westfield Big Local is not connected to Radstock Town Council. The Big Local is a Partnership of local residents who volunteer to help make sure the money that the community was awarded from the Lottery Fund is invested in the community, based on the needs of the community. Any resident of Westfield or Radstock (including Haydon, Clandown and Writhlington) can join the Partnership and in fact we strongly recommend people do join and share the responsibility as well as the enjoyment of making good things happen in our community!

You can find out more about the many (80+) local projects we have supported, and how you can get involved on our website: www.radstockwestfield.org.uk