‘Warm bank’ to be set up at Millmead Children’s Centre in Margate

Millmead SureStart

A warm bank will be opened at the Millmead Children’s Centre in Margate thanks to a donation from County Councillor Barry Lewis.

Cllr Lewis says the centre will use the funding to convert on of its rooms into a comfortable space for pre-school children to stay warm this winter. It is expected to open by October.

Last month there were calls at Kent County Council to identify places to be used as “warm banks” this winter amid the cost of living crisis.

Kent County Council’s shadow cabinet member for adult social care, Cllr Kelly Grehan (Lab)  lobbied for the community to come together to provide aid.

She was preparing a list of places where people could keep warm and go to sit to play games, chat, use computers and play activities for free, or at minimal cost.

Suggested “warm bank” venues include churches and libraries to allow people to go sit, play games, use computers and engage in other activities for free.

The idea of warm banks has been raised due to the electricity and gas industry regulator Ofgem announcing the energy price cap will rise by 80 per cent to £3,549 from October 1.

Cllr Barry Lewis

Cllr Lewis said the centre will put sofas, curtains and other items to make the room homely.

He said: “It is specifically for pre-school children as they are the most vulnerable to suffer from lack of heat.

“I urge other councillors to do the same thing because we have a national emergency.

“The thought of adults suffering from cold is terrible but nothing compared with infants struggling with lack of heat.”

Cllr Lewis says he believes the Millmead warm bank, which is in Dane Valley ward, is possibly the first in Kent to be confirmed.

KCC is due to present a full report on the cost of living crisis to full council this month.

Find Millmead Sure Start Centre online here

Additional reporting Local Democracy Reporter Ciaran Duggan

31 Comments

    • Good job are government is onto of the energy crisis. And hasn’t taken this country for a ride.
      Stick to writing books fella.

        • Neither Climate Change, nor the pandemic, nor war in Europe is the government’s fault.
          And, indeed, “fella” is not an English word. It derives from an obscure off-shoot of Indo-Brythonic. It refers (in its masculine form) to a male person of certain limited physical, intellectual or emotional maturity, possibly all three: the etymology is unclear.

          It is absolutely appalling that in the UK in the 21st century children are going cold and hungry, whilst most CEOs and not a few MPs are getting mind boggling sums of money.

        • You ate definitely not a fellow.
          And as all of your books have done.
          You once again have completely missed the point.
          The rising cost of most items was already happening before the pandemic and the war.
          The pandemic pointed out how we was very under prepared this country was and how much we was lied to. Beginning of said pandemic. News showing people dropping dead in the streets in China fake news on gmtv about the climate. Using the dame picture thay had been edited with clear sky’s and mountings. But they forgot to remove the same guy fixing his roof in the exact same position apparently taken a year apart. Dodge gov contracts. A PM and cabinet that has lied and partied there way through the last 3yrs.

          Peter get a grip and yet off your high horse.

        • Ms Know-Nothing, not sure how I just “compile” lists when I interviewed around 50 people for each of my last two books (and so far have interviewed over 100 musicians for the book I’m currently working on).

          Still, I could do something more constructive with my time, such as shouting outside empty buildings and spreading my hatred for anyone happier and/or wealthier than me on online.

          Have a lovely week.

          • I don’t think this thread is about you. Nor do I think that the IoTN is your personal PR platform (we all know that’s RSP’ privilege)
            I wonder what you think could be done to help people keep their children warm and fed this winter?

          • (a) Jumpers (home knitted from wool bought in charity shops), blankets and hot water bottles. Visit friends and family more (heating costs can then be shared).

            (b) Tinned sardines, pasta, rice, mixed frozen vegetables, dried pulses, instant mashed potato… the list is endless (oh, if they get out quick, they should find plenty of blackberries, plums and apples for free).

            (c) Buy my books (they’re very thick, so burn slowly).

            Just a few suggestions there.

          • Very well said Peter. One of the usual negative mouthy individuals shouting the odds at any local demonstration. I wonder if she earns a living?

          • Thank you FedupB. I’ve no idea what she does or doesn’t do (I don’t have the same obsession with her that she appears to have with me), but I did stumble on something quite amusing about her on the Guido Fawkes site a while back.

  1. Glad that these are popping up to provide warmth, but disgusted that this is needed when big businesses are making record profits and CEOs salaries are rising by high percentages numerous times a year and bonuses going to execs. Hate that this is being normalised.

  2. Can we get back to the main issue!?
    Britain is the 6th richest country on earth. (We used to be the fifth but have slipped behind France).
    Yet, with all this enviable wealth, we have debates online about how to stay warm in the winter as energy prices have sky-rocketed and incomes are so low that millions cannot afford them. This is not due to a shortage of money in the country. It is due to the unequal distribution of the wealth. A few have increasing amounts, not due to their “hard work” but due to the hard work of people who are employed in their companies. And the hard work of other people who buy the goods and services provided.
    The gap between the incomes of the top few and the rest has been growing since the 1980s. Before that, the establishment accepted the “Post War Settlement” in which they had to see their huge incomes limited by taxation in order to pay for a welfare state.
    In the end, they just wanted more money(not sure why as they already had oodles!) and pushed for less and less taxation on their income and an official indifference to their tax-avoidance schemes.
    Now the income gap is so huge, a significant part of the population can no longer afford the basics. The employers have just pushed their luck and their prices too far and, as in 2008, they threaten to bring their whole rotten system down. By fighting wage rises, but insisting on price rises, they risk seeing businesses close down all over the country.For lack of customers.
    Who will they blame then?

  3. The resident loon made this thread about him I see. Men like him often do. Whilst babbling on about we eat coal in my day and it did me no harm. Honestly we read your drivel trust me it did hurt you.

    On the Warm banks… it’s great people are stepping up and doing this and equally an utter tragedy that it’s needed.

    We shouldn’t hold up what happen forty years ago and how “people survived” as something we should embrace.

    Much like my grandad survived in the war. Doesn’t mean he’d want us to be bombed, face rations or any of the other atrocities of war.

    This cost of living crisis is manufactured by greed. Plain and simple.

  4. Phyliss what is appalling is the number of single mothers appearing on tv and radio saying I can’t afford to feed my children, perhaps they should’ve thought about that before doing the dirty deed,

    • Playing devil’s advocate, not all people actually go out to become a single parent. Things happen: My own sister had 6 kids that were provided for by a loving father – who died in a work-related accident.

  5. Some single parents game the system; so long as there is a child under school age, the mother isn’t expected to attend a work related interview at the job centre.

    This means open season on procuring the next deadbeat dad with no future.

    You all know what happens next – the god-given right to a council house.

    And after that? News interviews begging for clemency on heating debt.

    • Keep up with the times mate. Whisht. Typical misogynistic and ignorant of fact view. There are lone parents-of both sexes. There is a housing crisis. What caused you to be filled with such hate?

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