Communities set for £5k council windfall (From Echo)

Communities set for £5k council windfall

3:10pm Thursday 11th March 2010 in

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MORE winter grit bins, street lights and trees or shrubs could be coming to Rochford district as part of a new scheme to give more money to local committees.

Rochford District Council is looking at providing funds for its three area committees, which cover the east, west and centre of the district.

A report has recommended the committees get £5,000 each to spend on matters of community importance such as road signs, new lighting or planting trees or shrubs.

The budgets will be allocated from April onwards for a trial period of two years.

The £15,000 will be reallocated from the council’s community safety reserve with spending limited to £500 for each item.

The cross-party area committees were introduced in 2007, and include representatives from parish and town councils.

They meet every few months and are usually attended by members of Essex County Council, the police and fire service.

The report has been drawn up by the council’s review committee and the council’s Tory executive will make a final decision.

Committee chairman June Lumley said: “The committees are specific to each local area and they have a community feel to them.

“We want to give local members an opportunity to raise issues or to find small projects. There’s only a small amount of money because that’s what’s available to us this year.

“It will be tried for two years to look at the administration costs. We don’t want to end up with a huge bureaucracy for this costing more than the budget.”