Services for Barkham Village

This page covers some of the local services available to the Barkham area.

Barkham Charities

Wokingham Citizen's Advice Bureau

The Citizen's Advice Bureau (CAB) offers free, confidential advice on welfare benefits, a specialist debt service, employment, housing, disability information and many more topics. The Bureau can also provide the names of solicitors who give free legal advice.
The most local CAB to Barkham is at Wellington House, Wellington Road, Wokingham, and is open from 9am to 3pm Monday to Thursday, 9am to 1pm on Fridays. Tel: 0118 989 0389, Fax: 0118 978 2277.

Wokingham Volunteer Centre

Just 120 Minutes of Your Time?
If you can spare just a couple of hours a week to help others - then The Wokingham Volunteer Centre has a range of varied and worthwhile opportunities throughout the district. We particularly need car drivers (we pay for your petrol) who can help by driving elderly & infirm people to the shops, library etc. If you would like to learn more - simply contact The Wokingham Volunteer Centre, The Old Social Club, Elms Road, Wokingham. Tel: 978 2446.

Keep Mobile

Keep Mobile is a voluntary organisation, established in 1992 and registered as a charity through the Friendly Society in February 1993.
Our mission is to help those in the Wokingham District and Bracknell Forest Borough areas unable to use ordinary transport to reach their destination, wherever that may be, and have as much of an independent life as is possible with regard to transport.
At this time we operate six vehicles, these having capacities as follows:
(i) Two wheelchairs and six seats (3 off)
(ii) Two wheelchairs and ten seats
(iii) Five wheelchairs and eleven seats
(iv) Five wheelchairs and ten seats
All the above are maximum capacity for wheelchairs but seating requirements are adaptable. Our drivers and escorts are mainly volunteers, although we now employ two part time drivers to ensure a higher standard of reliability.

We have achieved the status of having our own MiDAS DAT (Driver Assessor/Trainer) on the Community Transport Association's Minibus Drivers Awareness Scheme. This allows us to ensure that we are training our drivers to the highest National Standard.

We provide the following services, all of which are door to door Dial a ride (DAR) where members can telephone to book a particular journey they require at a time to suit them. We respond by offering a service as near to their requirements as possible.

Scheduled Trips, a regular published service around the local towns enabling people to travel for whatever reason.
Shopping Days, a regular service to a specified town with sufficient time to shop or meet friends etc. Where required we provide an escort for those requiring help i.e. wheelchair users.
Day excursions, trips to places of interest as published in our monthly programme.

Contract work for other voluntary organisations including Stroke Clubs, Arthritis Care, Polio Fellowship, Berkshire Blind, Alzheimer's Association etc. the cost of which is currently 63 pence per mile the bus travels. We can also provide full venue booking including entrance fees etc. Please ask for details.

We provide accessible transport for those in the area unable to use the regular available transport due to their disability and/or age. We are recognised by the County Council as providers of this service in Bracknell Forest Borough and Wokingham District and comply with their requirements as far as vehicles are concerned. The County also provide a limited amount of core funding, which will be taken over by the unitaries once they are in office. All remaining fundraising is done by us.