OF course on one hand the wonderful surprise of a £1 million donation to Winchester Churches Nightshelter and Trinity Winchester is great news.

Both provide a vital service to address serious social problems, whose root cause is drug addiction, that over the last 30 years have become entrenched across Winchester.

http://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/14771836.Two_Winchester_homeless_groups_receive___1m_charity_windfall/

In the past both charities have always walked close to the edge of serious financial problems.

It now means that thanks to the generosity of Brigadier Tom Blyth, whose late son Ben was helped by both, the future is looking much more certain, at least in the short and medium terms.

But jubilation over such a huge sum should be tempered with the fact that statutory sources of funding are now likely to be sharply reduced, if not cut entirely. The authorities may take the view that the Nightshelter and Trinity can now stand on their own feet.

An irony of this is that both charities, which stem from Winchester’s long-established tradition of Christian activism, have never relied on state funding. They were set up through grassroots action in the 1980s. The money from the closure of Brig Blyth’s Deflog VQ Trust is another injection of private money.

The worry is that in future the lack of state support could become a serious issue for both. For the memory of Ben Blyth let us hope not.