whaley4wards_regenerationgrantcriteria

Posted on by

Whaley4Wards
Project Criteria
The emphasis is on ‘town centre’ projects. (An HPBC requirement)
Any regeneration expenditure should fit at least one of the following criteria :
• Deliver schemes to reduce local unemployment, provide employment opportunities or assist local people to develop skills or training relevant to the local economy.
• Support the development and delivery of events to encourage visitors to the town business centre, which will help support spend in local shops and thus helping sustain employment.
• Invest in public realm, shops front or environmental enhancements to ensure the town is attractive and able to maintain visitor and/or business confidence.
• Deliver improved marketing, retail initiatives or promotion of the town, to attract visitors or local people into the town centre and thus support town centre businesses and local employment.

Notes: HPBC provide £4000 of match funding towards regeneration spend. WBTC provide the other £4000. Total budget £8000. We have manged to extend the shopfront scheme to include Horwich End.

If budget is uncommitted by Q3 (Xmas) then the uncommitted budget could be offered to other towns or used by borough for regeneration works across the borough.
Please keep thinking of projects and schemes. If you have ideas for projects, please ensure that they fit at least one of the 4 criteria above.

Note that the budget is public money so money has to be spent carefully. It is very difficult to spend such money on something which is determined to be someone elses responsibility. For example, the Transhipment Warehouse and much of the Canal Basin are owned by the Canal and River Trust (formerly British Waterways), and they are responsible for upkeep and improvements.  It is not impossible to carry out joint projects, but the use of public money to benefit a third parties assets can be fraught with difficulty. Another example is that of the cast iron incline bridge by the vets. One project idea was to clean and paint the bridge. However, it was then determined, and confirmed, that it was actually the responsibility of HPBC to maintain the bridge. We then enter an argument about whether we should be using the regeneration budget to carry out works which HPBC should be funding from their own budgets as a matter of course, and in the end the project did not proceed.  Choosing projects is not neccessarily as easy as it might seem.

However, if you have any ideas, please submit them and they will be considered. Anyone can attend the W4W meetings. The idea of the meetings is not just to talk about things, but to actually take responsibility with others for a project and to see it through to completion. We dont want to be a talking shop only, and welcome anyone of all ages who can bring enthusiasm, ideas, skills of any kind(or none at all) , but most of all, a willingness to participate and see things through.