THE Okehampton Times brought bad news last week for West Devon, local families with young children, older people and the voluntary sector in general.

The Open Door Family Support Group has bowed to the pressure of finding funding for its excellent work, and now the Care and Repair service is said to be suffering from the same malaise. My own organisation faces yet again the same problem.

I read the article ?Appalled? by threat to Care and Repair service (October 21) with some astonishment. As a member of the advisory group that has tried to support this organisation for many years I was appalled to discover the peculiar funding patterns that emerged at our meeting with a Devon and Cornwall Housing representative on the same day.

The advisory group had previously been presented accounts over the years that demonstrated the efficiency, effectiveness and viability of the West Devon Care and Repair scheme.

Having read but not been aware that Devon and Cornwall Housing were still in consultation mode it was disturbing to have it reported to the advisory group that the Housing Board were meeting that afternoon to make recommended changes to staffing that will see the end of the Care and Repair service as we know it.

I find it difficult to maintain confidence in the face of what appears to me to be patronising behaviour.

West Devon has been ill served by the musical chair divisions that currently place parts of it in Mid Devon and South Hams, (Primary Care Trust and Social Services) North Devon (BT), Exeter (Boundary Commission proposals) and now South Devon for Devon and Cornwall Housing.

It is this unopposed institutional schizophrenia devoted to bureaucratic and administrative prosperity which I believe is distancing local government and statutory authorities from this local community.

Until and unless local people, and their elected representatives, find the courage to effectively challenge this withdrawal of rural funding from West Devon and the consequent needless destruction of the work of local volunteers we will witness a steady decline in existing services.

This area, distant from the comfortable seats of establishment, seems destined to sink into a social exclusion that will be unequalled in Europe.

The Rev Barrie Duke

Chief officer

Age Concern

Okehampton and Torridge

2 Crediton Road

Okehampton