20 staff at Cornwall Community Volunteer Services face the dole at Christmas

CAMBORNE staff working with some of the most vulnerable people in the community have been given redundancy notices, the West Briton can reveal.

Twenty Cornwall Community Volunteer Services (CCVS) employees are to lose their jobs as part of the charity's cost-cutting measures.

Those facing the axe include workers with visually impaired people, car and minibus drivers, people who offer company at Miners' Court and those involved with the charity's furniture bank, called Sofa Project, chairman Mike Firbank confirmed.

Mr Firbank said the charity, established nearly 40 years ago, has been unable to secure funding to keep it running.

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He said: "About 20 members of staff have been given warnings of proposed redundancies and we are now in consultation during which they can make suggestions, comments and ask questions.

"It's the same situation that a vast number of charities find themselves all over the country in, with a number of charities going bust every day.

"These possible redundancies are due to a combination of existing forms of funding stopping and new forms of funding not coming online quick enough.

"It's also about the cost of everything, such as petrol, going up. It will affect a lot of people in Cornwall."

Treve James, a centre development co-ordinator at All Saints Community Centre in Tuckingmill, described the news as devastating.

He said many of the members who use the facility rely on CCVS' services, adding: "Again it is the most vulnerable who need support at home or transport to hospital who will suffer the most.

"Many of our memory club members living with Alzheimer's are regularly picked up from Lanner and Redruth, for example, by their drivers.

"These people can't use a normal bus and without CCVS drivers they will not be able to come here."

Mr James, who was instrumental in turning around All Saints' fortunes, said better funding streams were required to help charities, adding: "Eventually the State will have to pick up the work and it is going to cost much more."

According to the Charity Commission, CCVS employs 52 people and 81 volunteers.

The charity's total income for the last financial year was £1.3 million with staff wages costing £995,000.