Member for Parkes Mark Coulton will host discussions with his state and federal colleagues in an attempt to secure further funding for a Mudgee community centre for people with disabilities.
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The federal MP toured the Lifeskills Plus Oporto Road facility on Friday.
Stage one of the facility including four respite rooms – two for high support clients – a lounge room, staff quarters and bathrooms is complete.
Prior to its Car Boot Sale Bonanza and Chain of Coins fundraising challenge in March, the disability service provider needed a further $600,000 to finish the second half of the building.
“Funding for disability services is done between state and federal governments and so from here I’ll go back and speak with my colleagues and see where we can steer this through,” Mr Coulton said.
“Troy Grant is also coming over here in the near future so I’ll have a chat to him so that we can get this finished because it not only services Mudgee.”
Mr Coulton said facilities the Oporto Road building are important to whole communities.
“If there’s a facility like this and someone has a disabled member of their family it means that they can stay and still remain active members of the community whereas if there’s not a service available you end up losing the whole family going to somewhere where they can get a service,” he said.
“I see that quite a bit in my patch especially in the remote areas and for a town the size of Mudgee there really has been a need for this for quite some time.
Mr Coulton said services like Life Skills would be critical to regional recipients of the National Disability Scheme.
“Individual clients can direct money to where they see fit but that’s only going to work if there’s actually a facility for them to access those things.”
