A NEW group will be set up in order to combat social deprivation in part of central Weymouth- but no money will be invested until a clear plan is made.

Weymouth and Portland Borough Council's Management Committee has voted to establish a "strategic board", which will oversee efforts to improve Melcombe Regis.

As reported in the Echo, the area is the most deprived in the borough and is within the top 20 per cent of the most deprived areas in the country, blighted by crime and poor housing.

A resident there is four times more likely to die prematurely as someone from Preston, less than two miles away.

The new strategic board will include the Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner and senior representatives from both Public Health Dorset and the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group.

It will also include members from Dorset County Council and Weymouth and Portland Borough Council. Cllr Jason Osborne, who represents the Melcombe Regis ward, said: "To have a board with big hitters on is a great idea."

"I think it is a very important decision and I will be behind it one hundred per cent."

Cllr Christine James questioned whether it was necessary to set up another group to deal with the persistent problems of Melcombe Regis, saying that residents were "fed up of being seen as a dumping ground".

She added: "I have been on this council long enough to see so many papers come forward about Melcombe Regis.

"I am amazed that we have got to set up another body of people to oversee these other people to make sure things are done."

Councillors rejected a proposal in the report to allocate £150,000 of funding to the group, deciding that money would only be released when the group put forward a report with clear plans to help solve the area's problems.

Chairman of the Scrutiny and Performance Committee, Cllr Gill Taylor, said that allocating the £150,000 from the housing reserve would have caused problems for the council in fulfilling its statutory duty to prevent homelessness.

Cllr Jeff Cant expressed concerns over not allocating financial resources, saying that "nothing happens for nothing" in terms of these projects.

He went on to say that the council had to start from "a position of being positive" on the group's potential for success in order to make it work.

Cllr Francis Drake, who also represents Melcombe Regis, said: "When it is good things, we talk about Weymouth, but when it is something like this, it’s no longer Weymouth – it becomes Melcombe Regis.

"I feel like it is the right way forward and we have got to clean up the town."

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