Banbury centre opens providing valuable advice for the over 50s

Banbury Business Village at the former Alcan plant on the Southam Road NNL-161213-160048001

Banburyshire Advice Centre, located at the Cherwell Business Village on the Southam Road in Banbury, has been established to meet the demand of the town’s growing population and decreasing like-for-like alternatives.

Andy Willis, chairman of the centre, said: “We set up the advice centre as Banbury has significant areas of deprivation and the town has grown hugely with many housing developments.

“Our dedicated advice centre has a wealth of information on a number of subjects.”

The range of subjects on which advice is available is indeed broad and have been tailored towards issues that are most problematic for the over 50s.

Areas covered include welfare benefit advice, housing advice, care home advice, education and leisure advice, how to find a tradesman, transport, bereavement, utilities and non-residential care.

The team of advisors have a wealth of experience having served in similar roles at the Citizen Advice Bureau and Age UK Oxfordshire.

Mr Willis said: “Our trained advisers have been working in the advice field for a long length of time and have dealt with many complex cases.

He added: “We have targeted over-50s as this is the area we are most specialised in.”

The expertise, however, does not cover all issues and the centre advise that they do not have specialist knowledge on legal advice, debt advice or tax advice but can forward clients on to experts in these fields.

The advice centre already has plans to expand its operations in the new year and will provide a drop-in service at the Hanwell Fields Community Centre .

The team also hope to evolve the services to a wider age group and plan to offer career counselling and adult education course information and advice to the over 18s.

Presently the advice centre is open on Mondays between the hours of 10am and 2pm. The service is free of charge but the centre suggests people call or email before turning up to ensure an advisor is free. You can contact the centre at 01295 279988 or by email [email protected]