Ventnor’s Health Visitor Team, who for the past 4 years have been based at Salisbury Gardens, are about to move to Sandown.
Ventnor Town Council is so concerned about that decision that it unanimously decided at its meeting on Monday (10th June) to ask those responsible to revisit it.
A spokesperson for Ventnor Town Council has said:
“We understand that one of the drivers of the proposed move is to save the current £4,500 rent. This is clearly not a deliverable saving given the additional six miles each way travel to their place of work that would be required at 45pence per mile plus the lost face-to-face client time.
“The Town Council’s major concern is the inevitable reduction in the level of this crucial service for the town’s young mothers and their children. It’s all the more serious because Barnardo’s have reduced services at the once excellent Children’s Centre in the town to less than one day a week”.
Upper Ventnor and the Town Centre – home to half of the town’s population – are among the most deprived, not only on the Island but nationally too according to the government’s Index of Multiple Deprivation 2015.
The evidence showing the importance of the early years’ experience in addressing deprivation and increasing life chances is ‘absolutely clear’; which is why the Town Council is requesting that this decision be reconsidered.
