AT the annual budget meeting on January 16, Winsford Town Council Labour group unanimously rejected a proposal put by me that the council should now take ownership of the project Wellbeing Winsford and include its funding in the annual budget.

The Labour group counterproposal was that the Wellbeing Project should apply each year to the grants committee, without any guarantee of financial support.

This begging bowl approach was supported by all of the Labour councillors, only the Lib Dems voted against.

In the budget every year, a sum is set aside for the council-owned allotments. This year £10,000 has been allocated.

Clearly allotments are more important to the Labour Party than the health and wellbeing of it residents.

The Wellbeing project was started by Cllr Ailsa Gaskill-Jones as a major part of her mayoral programme in 2015.

As a midwife, she was acutely aware of the frankly appalling health and wellbeing statistics for the town, which show high levels of obesity in adults and children.

Increase in cancer deaths, high levels of smoking by pregnant women, higher levels of sickness benefit claims and alarmingly, parts of Wharton are identified as just about the worst-performing area across England for disability and health deprivation.

There are many other equally depressing statistics regarding the health and wellbeing of the town.

All of these statistics and many more are on the CWAC website.

The Wellbeing Winsford project was an immediate success and supported by the local GPs, CWAC officers based locally, Age UK, Bright Life, Active Cheshire, Brio Leisure, the Motherwell group, the Crosshatch Art Gallery, Action on Cancer, Winsford Town Centre management and many others has ensured the continuation of the project to date.

Winsford Council gave some initial financial support in 2015 as did individual CWAC councillors (from their community allowance fund) and Cllr Gaskill-Jones spent around £700 of her mayoral allowance to get the project up and running.

Making the project part of its core strategy, Winsford Town Council would ensure the certainty of continuous financial support for this vital project, and more importantly would show leadership to other councils.

I would ask your Winsford readers to contact their Labour councillors and ask them individually why they did not support the proposal I made.

Malcolm Gaskill Leader of the Lib Dem group Winsford Town Council