Smaller communities need more help

Once again, questions are being asked of the organisations that are supposed to be “looking out” for smaller and increasingly vulnerable communities such as ours in Staines.

As outlined in previous correspondence with yourselves and the United Synagogue, we are fighting hard and passionately for our very future but are getting no assistance from the CST when it comes to security cover payments — they have supported us in the past with grants but we have so far been denied one for 2017/18.

We are simply not in a financial position at present to pay for cover ourselves so a largely ageing congregation is having to patrol the area around the building themselves.

(Out of interest, the CST recently sent us four stabproof waistcoats that must have cost a lot of money but they are virtually un- wearable as they are so heavy and cumbersome, leaving everybody feeling that the money could have been better spent).

These grants do not come from CST funds but from the Government and are merely distributed by the CST, yet despite repeated assurances from them that they will review it, we have heard nothing, leaving us in a very difficult position.

If an incident occurs here that could otherwise have been avoided, had we had visible security cover, we will know where the responsibility lies.

The Staines community will of course carry on looking after itself as it always has done but I cannot help feeling that this is another classic case of a smaller congregation being ignored in the hope it will go away! Don Brenner,

Staines, Middx