Voting ends tomorrow on funding for community projects
Voting ends tomorrow on just what schemes should receive money from a pot to improve local communities across Greenwich borough.
There’s actually too many great schemes listed. It makes me a little sad knowing some lose out. There are new play areas, sensory gardens, facilities for the elderly, tree planting through working with schools, autism support and much more. It shows how much can be achieved with modest sums.
The money comes from Greenwich Council’s Local Infrastructure Levy pot of cash – which they receive from new developments.
I’ve seen Greenwich Council try to make out this is their generosity. In reality the law now states 15% of CIL income has to go towards local projects and it must be publicly consulted upon.
Other boroughs such as Lewisham have decided to go above the legal minimum of 15% and opted for 25%. Greenwich have not – so trying to put good PR on it from their perspective is a bit rich and means some great schemes will not receive funds.
GLLaB again
Much of the other 85% income from the Community Infrastructure Levy is going to council job agency Greenwich Local Labour and Business (GLLaB) rather than health, education, local projects and improving towns and public spaces.
GLLaB currently has just two jobs listed on their site and the open day page is empty.
I’ve yet to receive a satisfactory answer after many questions as to why such a disproportionate amount of CIL (and section 106) goes to GLLaB rather than fantastic schemes such as those now up for voting.
GLLaB does do some good work but its allocation vastly exceeds other spending areas.
Look through the list and you realise that if more than the bare minimum went to community projects all could have been funded using a fairer distribution of CIL income. Some wonderful projects will miss out – including those that didn’t even make the final list.
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Image courtesy JohnB(Woolwich) via Creative Commons 2.0
