Some notes from the SSCF board meeting yesterday…

We’re still in a position where we’ve got to spend the investment before the end of the year – otherwise it’s taken back by the government. We’re getting there and we should be ok on the capital cash now. It seems that the revenue (wages) money is going to be difficult because we end up in a position where we have to spend nearly a year’s worth of revenue in the last quarter of the year.

This is honestly the most ridiculous way of running investment in a community. I’ve said before that Chris Skinkis is doing a great job locally to line everything up, but to be given four months or so to spend twelve months of cash – or it goes back to the government – is lunacy. We should never have been put in this position in the first place, and it’s down to the rules of the investment and local delaying that has left us here.

Still, there are projects in the pipeline from the police and possibly for some CCTV which will take the rest of the cash – but I don’t think that many of the people on the board are terribly happy with it.

We ought to be putting in the plans for next year’s spend now… but because we’re chasing our tail to sort out this year’s spend we aren’t getting a chance to lift our heads and look forward.

Other things to note were further discussions about CCTV and where any new paths and cycle lanes should be built.

Hopefully this will settle down in the new year.

The government has said (apparently) that the Safer Stronger Communities investment (SSCF) for year 1 has to be spent by the end of the financial year. This is regrettable because the first half of the year has been spent talking to residents in the SSCF neighbourhood and setting up the board, which was further delayed because of a change in policy by the Local Strategic Partnership to hold elections for the board.

The upshot of trying to get the community involved in the process is that now there is an almighty rush to get the money spent. Of course, there are all sorts of lead times for spending in local government, which means that realistically we have to have a proposal for the spend in the next couple of weeks.

This represents 1/3 of all the capital spend – in other words, the bricks and mortar changes in the Digmoor area…

It’s disappointing that, because there has been an attempt to engage with the community, the board now has to go back to the County and District councils to draw up plans quickly to spend the money. A cynic would suggest that the process was set up this way to bounce the board into going along with what the council wants. I tend to think it’s more cock-up than stitch-up. I hope I’m not being naive.

It was the second proper meeting of the SSCF (Safer Stronger Communities Fund) board on Thursday evening. Things are starting to move forward. At the first meeting the board had decided to invest the capital monies in the super output area covering Beechtrees and surrounding roads.

This meeting first agreed to co-opt Joanne Harrison on as a community representative to fill the place that was left open in Moorside after the ballot.

There was also discussion about the idea of a newsletter – a very good idea that came from the LAD group (Listen, Act, Do) who had been doing the initial consultation about how the money should be spent. While there was some discussion around the costs and what the precise details of the proposal, it was generally agreed to be a good idea and that information has to get back to the community about how the money is being spent.

It’s fair to say that there are some concerns over spending a lot of the money on CCTV. There are some areas that would benefit from CCTV, such as by Digmoor Parade, along the main pathway and by the park (if it helps bring in some other funding too). However, I’m getting feedback that people are concerned about it being close to houses and also concern that there is a desire by some to just spend the money on cameras and not on the broader aims identified in the consultation.

In terms of the money… there is a lot of pressure on the board to spend the first year’s capital investment quickly, particularly since we are told that it cannot roll into next year (i.e. it has to be spent by April 2007). I have my concerns about the pressure to spend money – it makes it difficult to spend the money wisely. There were months of consultation and then the local LSP (Local Strategic Partnership) decided that there should be an election for community representatives. That took out six months of the year, so we’re only just getting round to the spending now.

The board agreed that a “blueprint” or development framework for the Beechtrees area should be put together to guide how the money is spent.

Finally, it was decided that the project should be called the “Community Development Board”.

I’ll update this blog regularly with updates as the project moves forward. Next update should be about next week’s presentation from John McCall Architects with some ideas about what can be done with the money.