Sir, Councillor Bill Service, leader of Didcot Town Council, wrote to you last week about an error of fact in your article the previous week.

In doing so he made statements about Didcot CAB which we feel we need to correct. He states that the town council built the premises at no cost to the CAB; in fact, we contributed £30,000 as part of our agreement with the council.

The CAB is not a wealthy organisation. We are a charity and the reserves we keep are those any charity with paid staff would need to meet its obligations in the event of closing down.

The unexpected cut in grant from the town council last year from £10k to just over £3k has already caused us budgetary problems and now we face additional uncertainty and expense just when the service is needed more than ever.

He states that according to our last “balance sheet” we now employ 11 paid staff (as opposed to one when we first moved in to our offices). The way that Mr Service uses that fact (derived from the notes to our last set of accounts) shows a misunderstanding. Eleven people are employed part-time which actually equates to between two and three full-time posts: two of the 11 are supervisors at our premises in Wallingford and another is the cleaner who comes in one hour a week.

We do not have 11 full-time managerial staff all jostling for space, but we do have an increasing number of clients and the volunteer advisers who help them who all need to be accommodated.

The loss of the purpose-built premises which the then town council generously (yes, of course we acknowledge past generosity) built in 1995 to house the CAB will be a heavy blow.

Judith Abela Manager The Didcot & District CAB