Council designates 67 warm spaces for the winter

A council has designated 67 community buildings as "welcoming warm spaces" to help people struggling with the cost of living this winter.

The locations listed by West Northamptonshire Council included libraries, village halls and cafes.

The Labour opposition has criticised the council for not opening its own offices as warm spaces.

The council was also rolling out weekly £15 vouchers over Christmas for children eligible for free school meals, and £250 vouchers for people in work, but earning £300 or less per week.

The local authority has a dedicated call centre to help residents.

"Get in touch and we will do everything we can to try and help you," said Matthew Golby, Conservative cabinet member for adult care, wellbeing and health integration.

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The warm spaces, which have varying opening hours, were advertised on the council website as somewhere to "perhaps enjoy a hot meal or a cup of tea"

One of the locations, Northampton Hope Centre, said the number of people it supported had tripled in the last three weeks.

Hope chief executive Alex Copeland said: "The cold is starting to come; that is obviously going to put even more pressure on a lot of people's budgets.

"People are just going to need a warm space they can go and someone they can go talk to and get help."

One man visiting Hope, who did not wish to give his name, said: "You can notice the change in temperature - we come here to chill out; have a tea or coffee."

The leader of the Labour opposition at the council, Wendy Randall, said the local authority should have "led by example" by opening its own offices, such as The Guildhall in Northampton, as warm spaces.

She also said the council needed to improve public transport to help people travel to the warm spaces and said the winter vouchers would be more targeted if they were distributed using the council tax register.

"For me it's trying to find those people and helping them," said Ms Randall.

"It's pretty shocking we have come to this."

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