Norfolk County Council commits £2.4m to help ensure No Lonely Day
Norfolk County Council has stepped up its In Good Company campaign to combat loneliness in the county by announcing £2.4m of new funding to help ensure no one spends a lonely day in Norfolk if they don’t want to.
Community Action Norfolk, The Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk and Voluntary Norfolk will use the funding to develop new and innovative ways to address the health and wellbeing of people affected by loneliness and social isolation over the next three years.
Speaking about the new initiative, Bill Borrett, Chairman of the County Council’s adult social care committee said: “In Good Company is our county-wide campaign to tackle loneliness. It's important because of the way loneliness and social isolation negatively affects the health and wellbeing of our residents. Estimates show that over 40,000 people in Norfolk are lonely*.
“These are people who are more likely to have poor health, to become victims of scams and fraud and more likely to become reliant on public services sooner.
"We are committed to doing all we can to help Norfolk’s residents stay independent, resilient and well for as long as possible. So, investing in new ways of preventing loneliness is an important way of achieving this and I am very excited about the prospect of working with our partners on projects that are directly designed to do this over the next three years.”
*Intelligence and Analytics, ONS dataset, 2015 population estimates
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