Take Pride Community Fund bids to be discussed by Cabinet
The outcome of a rigorous selection process to allocate this year’s second homes funding to organisations who take pride in their local community will be discussed by Cabinet next week (November 6).
26 local organisations supporting the district’s voluntary, community, faith and arts sectors are in with a chance of sharing more than £283,000 from the new Take Pride Community Fund.
The Take Pride Community Fund (previously referred to as Second Homes Funding) was launched in August this year with the aim of investing in local organisations to help them develop, work together and become more sustainable in the long-term.
Local organisations were invited to submit an interest in applying for a share of the fund and needed to demonstrate that their projects met at least one of the following criteria:
* Provide support to other front-line organisations in these sectors
* Renovate and improve premises and accommodation
* Support the co-ordination and expansion of volunteering
* Help organisations become more efficient, effective and financially sustainable in the long term.
There were two categories of funding available – up to £10,000, or between £10,000 and £50,000, with a total pot of £283,725.
Since August, the council has received an overwhelming response from 97 organisations submitting bids totalling more than £2 million.
An advisory panel comprising representatives from both Lancaster City Council (Couns Eileen Blamire and Jon Barry) and Lancashire County Council (Cabinet member, Mark Perks), was set up to assess each application against strict criteria and recommend allocations of funding as well as provide considered advice to help Cabinet determine final funding allocations.
54 applications for funding totalling more than £890,000 went through to the next round for further scrutiny by the panel. Of these, 26 are being recommended for approval by Cabinet at its meeting on November 6.
Richard Tulej, Lancaster City Council’s Head of Community Engagement, said: “The response and strength of all the applications submitted was overwhelming and meant that the advisory panel had an extremely difficult task in deciding which local organisations should receive a share of this year’s Take Pride Community Fund.
“As much as we wanted to support as wide a variety of projects as possible, with the grand total of bids exceeding £2 million and less than £284,000 in the pot, the selection process needed to be more rigorous than we had anticipated to ensure the successful projects benefitted as many people as possible for as long as possible.”
The funding has been made available by Lancashire County Council from its share of the council tax collected on second homes in the Lancaster District.
Full details of the process and shorted listed organisations can be found in the report submitted for discussion by Cabinet members - http://committeeadmin.lancaster.gov.uk/documents/s40384/Take%20Pride%20Community%20Fund.pdf
Date Published: 31/10/12