A ONE-year funding package is to be awarded by the town council to the Wellington Community Counselling organisation.

Members of Wellington Town Council’s policy and finance committee met on April 20 where it agreed to provide a 12-month Service Level Agreement – as opposed to a three-year plan applied for by the charity.

Wellington Community Counselling’s previous SLA, over three years, had recently come to an end and had asked for a new package over 36 months amounting to £69,600 – consisting of £22,620 in years one and two and then £24,360 in year three.

The counselling service’s founder, Rhonda Lovell, spoke to councillors and said that the organisation was needed more than ever with the number of people coming forward with mental health issues ever growing.

But Cllr John Thorne said he was concerned that Wellington Community Counselling had been “losing money for the past couple of years.”

“We like to work with organisations that are financially sound,” he said.

Rhonda responded: “We are a not-for-profit organisation so we aren’t here to make money. All the money we do make is put back into the organisation.

“Wellington Community Counselling is eight-years-old and if we were financially inept we wouldn’t be here now.”

Cllr Justin Cole said: “I support this, but I think a one-year SLA would be right rather than three years.”

Cllr Andy Govier said: “In light of the fact that we have agreed to give Reminiscence Learning a one-year SLA, it would be wrong of us to now award Wellington Community Counselling a three-year SLA.

“Wellington Community Counselling provides a great service and I believe in it. But it would be fair for us to only award a one-year SLA. I am sure we will continue to support this group in the future.”

Councillors agreed to award Wellington Community Counselling a 12-month SLA.