A MULTI-MILLION pound project to create a countywide information ‘hub’ has run into difficulty following a difference of opinion between county and district leaders.

Plans to set up a Cumbria Information Hub providing details about a range of council services to residents across the county got under way last year.

The project, which was match-funded by the Government to the tune of £1.4 million, attracted £1.1 million of local authority funds from Cumbria County Council and local district councils.

The idea was that residents could call the facility about diverse services from bin collections and roads, to home care and street lighting.

But CCC’s cabinet heard that plans to set up the one-stop information shop had hit a stumbling block after two district councils set up their own contact centres. CCC officers said the project was at a “decisive stage”.

As previously reported, South Lakeland District Council set up its own hub-type centre earlier this year.

Phone lines at the £200,000 SLDC customer contact centre opened for business on September 15.

SLDC customer services director Mike Jones said the authority was still talking to CCC about the countywide project.

He said there was no reason why the satellite centre could not link into a central Cumbria-wide Hub and denied the centre was an additional expense to the taxpayer.

“What we are really interested in is our residents and we see the importance of local knowledge, we are not entirely convinced they would rather phone a call centre in Carlisle.” A report to CCC said: “It may be that the (hub) project goes ahead without some participants or potentially not at all. This will be dependent upon the final number of partners who confirm their continued input.” CCC deputy leader Mike Ash said Cumbria was keen to see the hub project come to fruition despite the fact some authorities had already set up their own centres. He said CCC was awaiting their response.

“CCC is bending over backwards to try to make this work because it is a very important initiative but it takes two to tango,” he added.