Charities are forced to join forces; Small number of residents causes problem.

Byline: Brian Daniel 

CHARITIES in a coastal village in the North East have merged after growing numbers of second homes left the community with not enough people to run them.

Craster, in Northumberland, has seen an increase in second and holiday homes in recent years.

This has led to a fall in the village's already small permanent population and the effects of this are now being felt by community groups and charities.

Bodies like Craster Community Development Trust, Craster Memorial Hall Committee and Craster Parish Council, which all also serve the neighbouring village of Dunstan, were all having to recruit volunteers from the same small pool of residents.

This led to the same names cropping up on the various bodies and operations for all the different groups were being made increasingly difficult.

Now two of the groups affected have taken steps to address the problem with the development trust and the hall committee merging to make best use of resources.

Michael Craster, who is chairman of the newly-merged committees and also a parish councillor, said: "We have a lot of very good people in the two villages who have given a great deal of their time and effort to the memorial hall and to the development trust.

"However, times change and people age and move on.

"I am sure that we can use the time and effort of the available pool of volunteers more effectively if we can bring both charities into a single organisation."

The parish council currently has a full complement of members, many of whom also serve on other bodies.

But it rarely holds elections when there is a vacancy due to a shortage of people wanting to put themselves forward and it is usually a case of councillors persuading people to join, and then co-opting them.

Parish councillor Michael Robson, who was co-opted rather than elected and was also vice chairman of the memorial hall committee, said: "It would be fair to say that there are not the numbers to form committees, whether it be the parish council, the trust or the memorial hall.

"I think this is probably a topic that is relevant whether you are in St Ives in Cornwall, or Beadnelll, or in Craster.

"It is just falling numbers within communities."

Michael Doherty, who is chairman of the lifeboat committee in Craster and a member of the development trust until stepping down at the age of 73, said: "I think it is going to be difficult to be able to ensure there is a good representation of all the interests and all the age ranges.

"Like every village the young people are either gone away seeking work or they are so involved in travelling back and forwards they can not really have the time to get involved with the community, except at weekends.

"It does devolve upon the retired people to form the bulk of the membership of these organisations."

CAPTION(S):

HELP Michael Doherty was chairman of the lifeboat committee in Craster and a member of the development trust until stepping down at the age of 73.