THE Isle of Wight Law Centre will appear twice on tonight’s full council agenda, as members vote on the future of the service.

A 3,000-strong petition has been submitted to members, after the Isle of Wight Council announced it would not renew its grant amid a move to recommission services.

The council has provided £70,000 in funding over the past three years to provide legal services.

After a campaign was launched to ‘save the law centre’, the council clarified it was not looking to cut services, just recommission them.

The petition will be brought to the chamber by Colleen Brannon, a member of the Isle of Wight Labour Party.

Colleen said the centre helped her after her mum suffered a stroke and her dad was forced to give up work to care for her.

She said: “The Law Centre prevents crisis becoming catastrophe. Last year, the Isle of Wight Council spent £1.4 million on temporary accommodation. In the absence of an organisation delivering the very specialist work of the law centre, it’s easy to see how that figure could drastically rise.”

Cllr Geoff Brodie (Labour) has submitted a motion, urging the administration to recognise the benefits of the service and ‘undertake a separate tendering process for all the specialist services currently provided by the Isle of Wight Law Centre, open to all relevant parties’.

He is also asking the council recognise that specialist services do not easily fit into a generic ‘Information, Advice and Guidance’ model.

Chris Whitehouse (Conservative) has also submitted an amendment.

It asks that: “The council resolves to continue to ensure that its procurement practices are open, transparent and lawful, delivering value for money for Islanders and ensuring the necessary range of legal and other advice is available to those who have access to it currently through the law centre and other providers.”

Speaking last week, deputy leader Cllr Stuart Hutchinson said: “This is not about stopping services but looking at better ways of delivering them.

“We believe recommissioning services will help us offer better support, providing help with housing, benefits, debt, employment, health and so on.”

However, a centre spokesperson said it did not deliver information, advice and guidance services — branding the suggestion it could bid for the new contract ‘meaningless’.