Rallying call to save Royal British Legion clubs
- Today's leader
Shropshire volunteer fears Big Society will be a flop
Friday 18th February 2011, 7:00PM GMT.
Stoke Heath volunteer Tony Robinson
Volunteers supporting good causes across Shropshire need more help to make David Cameron’s Big Society blueprint into a reality, it was claimed today.
Tony Robinson, of Stoke Heath, near Market Drayton, volunteers as a community car driver but claims his good deeds are hitting him in the pocket.
He has called on the Government to re-examine things such as mileage rates for volunteer drivers to help get the Big Society off the ground.
He said otherwise the Prime Minister’s vision was doomed to fail in a big rural county like Shropshire.
Under current tax rules Mr Robinson said it could cost him money to give children with special needs lifts between their homes in north Shropshire and Severndale School in Shrewsbury.
He has called on the Tory-led coalition Government to make practical changes to encourage even more volunteering.
Once he has completed a certain number of miles in the tax year, Mr Robinson said the mileage rate he can claim plummets by almost half.
And in a big county like Shropshire he said the costs incurred by some volunteer drivers could quickly mount up. He said the situation would cause many volunteers hardship, and said he was considering whether he could afford to carry on.
“I’m going to have to pack in being a volunteer driver after six-and-a-half years unless things change,” he said.
“I give my time freely and paid for my own car, so I feel I shouldn’t be penalised for doing a lot of mileage in the role.
“We are told about the Big Society but how the Government expect people to volunteer their services is beyond me when it actually costs people money to get involved.
“We need the tax system changed and things like mileage rates increased otherwise the Big Society will be a big flop.”
Councillor Martin Taylor-Smith, cabinet member for transport at Shropshire Council, said: “We fully support the mileage rate being increased, but that’s ultimately a decision for the Government and HMRC.
“As a council, we will continue to support volunteer drivers as much as possible, because they provide a valuable service.”
By Tom Johannsen
Sponsored Links
Most Commented
- Shropshire Council will face £8m redundancy bill
- Clampdown on Shrewsbury chuggers
- Bishop's gay marriage views do nothing to support bible teachings
- Letter: Alcohol price plans annoy me
- Letter: No sense in overseas job adverts
- Letter: Angered by close encounter of the furred kind
- The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff doesn't raise a smile
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
how can he say so blantantly he supports milage rates going up? he’s not being fully true there i fear because he voted with his conservative cabinet collegues for staff and councillors and volunteers to have milage rates cut to 40 p per mile and if he so chose as a council they could choose to pay people more if they wanted
Report abuse
How sick our nation has become when Bullingdon Club millionaires demand the peasants toil for free!
For as it says in Timothy 5:18 “The labourer is worthy of his hire.”
Cough up, or shut up, Mister Cameron!
Report abuse
the irony is that in shropshrie we already have a big society, because its rural, because we have more older retired people, we get loads of volunterring going on and its really great, but it all takes peoples time and needs money, mainly its funded by the local council, schools, hospitals, libraries and litter picking, it all benefits for millions of pounds worth of free volunteering every year, a true big society, but since cameron came in, its going backwards ,you cut the fuding for councils, you destroy the big society, meanwhile fat bloated departments of whitehall are getting less than half as cut, why? central government is remote and expensive, local councils are the big society, on the cheap, locally, using volunteers, we need to fund local councils more what ever the fiscal situation, save by cutting back on the number of Mps in westminster and the central monoliths of beuorcracy like the nhs and defra, not cutting our local frontline bin collections and libraries please mr cameron
Report abuse
of course it will, you cant do volunteerting with out some funding
Report abuse
When there is no employment in the area, this is such a good thing that the volunteers are doing, but need their costs covered, they get paid 40p per mile for the first 10k miles then it drops to 25p for the rest of that year, with the price of fuel and everything else how on earth can these drivers be expected to run for nothing…? I was thinking of becoming a volunteer driver having recently moved to the area, but having read and looked into this have changed my mind. This is a ruling by the Inland Revenue not Shropshire council, and has not been reviewed since 2002, so come on Cameron give the caring people of this country a chance to care and help others that need it.I think you will find thats what being part of a big Society really means……..
Report abuse