A BEVERLEY advice centre is reassuring people it will continue to help despite a staffing cutback.

A squeeze on funds is forcing the Cherry Tree Centre to make its debt adviser redundant, despite increasing numbers needing help with money problems.

The Cherry Tree Community Association, which is a registered charity, says half of its work involves providing debt advice to people struggling with financial problems.

In the past year about half of the Cherry Tree Lane centre's 1,200 appointments were for debt advice.

Association secretary Jim Sharp said: "Debt is growing. In the past month alone we've given advice to three people facing bankruptcy compared with only two in the whole of the previous year."

But Mr Sharp said attracting funding for the centre's work was becoming increasingly difficult.

The launch of a new Community Legal Advice Network (Clan), which is run by the Citizens' Advice Bureau and partly funded by East Riding Council, is expected to result in less grant aid for the Cherry Tree Lane centre's work.

Clan, which will be based in Beverley, Bridlington and Goole, will offer legal help, including debt advice.

The Cherry Tree Centre will now have to make one of its two part-time advisers redundant.

But Mr Sharp said the Cherry Tree Community Association, which will continue with a welfare rights adviser and a team of volunteers, will still be able to offer debt advice.

However, more volunteers are needed to cope with the workload, which includes 80 debt cases.

Mr Sharp said: "We will always be needed.

"It will take a while for the new Citizens' Advice Bureau service to get themselves known and they will only be in Beverley two days a week anyway."

The Cherry Tree Community Association, which was established on the Cherry Tree Estate in 1992, funds its activities with the help of income from room rentals and grants from bodies including East Riding Council.