CAMPAIGNERS have vowed to fight on after failing in a bid to stop council staff using the first floor of an education centre as part of the authority’s cuts.

Torfaen council moved employees into four rooms at The Settlement centre in Trosnant Street, Pontypool, this autumn.

The move is part of austerity savings pushed through by the Labour-led council.

Campaigners collected almost 400 signatures against the decision saying it was “short-sighted” but Torfaen council said the first floor should remain in use for council staff for the time being, at a council meeting yesterday.

Grandmother Carole Richards is a member of the Jolly Stitchers group based at the education centre and helped with the campaign.

She said: “In a way we are reconciled with that but we are determined they are not going to take anymore. We are struggling in the hall.”

A report presented at thel meeting yesterday (Tue), said: “The changes are part of a wider set of circumstances, driven externally and at relatively short notice, but providing opportunities for wider council benefit, albeit that there has seen some impact on some user groups.”

The report added: “It is possible that similar circumstances could arise next spring, and so formally preparing for that possibility is required to enable more considered choices as to whether any consequences should be adsorbed within the ACL or wider community services or more strategically across the council.”

Torfaen councillors voted in favour of the report, meaning the first floor will remain in use for council staff for the “foreseeable future”.

Kay Witcombe, from Pontnewynydd, is a resident and member of the Settlement adult education centre.

She said: “I’ve got a feeling [the council] have got something up their sleeve and they’re not telling us. They say they are not going to close it – I reckon they’ve got plans for it.

“We understand that maybe cuts need to be made, but do these cuts have to be made at the bottom. Why not the street level bureaucrats that make decisions supposedly to benefit all.

We have had to give up classrooms at the settlement to house council offices. This move did not come cheap, new curtains carpets and such like. I would like to know why provisions was not taken to accommodate them, when the new civic centre was built.”