High fuel prices puts vital service for OAPs and disabled under threat

community car schemes volunteers in the north beginning to quit

Published:

FUEL FEARS: Community car scheme volunteers from Newtonmore, Roy Whitton and Hilda Saunders. David Whittaker-Smith

A lifeline volunteer service for the elderly and disabled in remote rural areas is under threat from rocketing fuel prices.

Community car scheme volunteers throughout the Highlands use their own cars to ferry clients to shops, banks, post offices, doctors, dentists and hospitals.

But now they are starting to quit because their expenses do not cover the cost of road fuel.

Under Treasury rules, they are reimbursed 40p per mile, a rate intended to cover fuel, insurance, road tax, maintenance and depreciation. But the figure has not changed since 2002, when fuel was in the region of 72p per litre.

With unleaded petrol currently hitting 116p and diesel 126p a litre, car scheme volunteers are now digging deeper into their own pockets.

In Badenoch and Strathspey, two volunteers have already left on grounds of cost. In Lochaber, organisers fear they may not attract new recruits to keep the scheme going. And in Gairloch, volunteers are cutting back on their availability.

Last night organisers warned that, if the service closed, many of their clients would be forced to move into care homes but, if they raised the mileage rate, their volunteers would need to pay tax.

Maggie Lawson, manager of the Badenoch and Strathspey scheme, said: “The knock-on effects if the service was to go would be extremely serious.

“There is no doubt that the resulting loss of independence, confidence and increasing isolation would result in many of our clients having to go into care homes.

“It costs £125,000 a year in core funding from the Scottish Government to keep the scheme going at the moment. Imagine what it would cost to have even 50% of our clients in care homes.”

Committed

Volunteer driver Roy Whitton, 77, of Glen Grove, Newtonmore, said: “I am committed to this scheme, but I am definitely subsidising it now. I don’t know how much longer I can continue.”

Fellow volunteer driver Hilda Saunders, also over 70, warned: “If fuel goes up anymore, I’ll have to stop.”

Stroke victim Bill MacPherson, 78, of Glen Grove , who relies on the service to get to the hospital, the bank and the post office, said: “Public transport is not always available and not adapted for people with serious mobility problems.”

Manager of Lochaber Community Car Scheme, Benny Macdonald, admitted there is “growing concern” among volunteers.

Allan Jones, co-ordinator of the Gairloch community car scheme said: “Our service is under strain.

“No one is leaving, but drivers are saying they are finding it difficult to continue, and some are making themselves less available.” Communities Minister Fergus Ewing said he has raised the issue with government ministers in Westminster and Edinburgh.

He said: “Volunteers cannot be expected to subsidise these schemes.

“The basic problem is the huge windfall Gordon Brown receives from taxation at the pumps. We pay twice the amount of fuel tax than our Mediterranean neighbours.

“It would be a tragedy if these schemes had to end.”