Agenda item

To consider the head of corporate strategy’s report. 

The officer introduced the applications for both New Homes Bonus and Capital Grants.

There was a New Homes Bonus (NHB) and Capital Grants bid for the Branches Young People’s Support Service in Botley. The NHB bid was for youth workers at the café and the Capital Grants bid for equipment at the café. Both score quite well. Officers are recommending deferring the application to the next round due in order to gain further information about the bid.

The statement from the Equalities Officer raised concerns around the disabled access to the toilets.

Community benefits score is 1 out of 3 due to the limited opening hours. There is also a low score for funding, as the project has yet to secure other sources of funding.

Diane Long and Dave Goodspeed the directors of the Branches youth project spoke and answered questions from the committee. They were joined by Councillor Emily Smith, who had stepped down in order to be able to speak as an advocate.

·           The two speakers were qualified youth workers. The Branches would be a youth café in Westway Development for young people aged 12 – 18 or to 25 with special educational needs. The project would be a community business/social enterprise.

·           Initially the café would only open for three sessions per week for core business, but would also be open at other times for the whole community and partnerships, some of which maybe income generating. The café would use young people and adult volunteers. The aim is for it to become a resource for the whole community, run by the young people.

·           It was accepted that access to the disabled toilets is an issue for the moment.

·           Funding: the project aims to raise the capital investment by the New Year and get the community behind them. They intend to use Crowd Funding. The Café will be an enterprise generating income. For each core session they plan to generate £2.5 thousand per year. Are in a position to be commissioned for autism services.

·           The current premises in place until July 2018 and the project will then be in dialogue with Mace developers for longer term accommodation.

·           The project would be a mixture of open access and specialist referral for more vulnerable young people.

·           Both the neighbourhood plan working group and parish council have identified need for youth work for over 14s. There has been a lot of community consultation on this project.

The committee discussed the application.

A motion,  proposed and seconded for approval, was put to the vote that the community benefit scoring would be raised to 3 out of 3, moving the project up to a high priority benefit. AGREED

A motion, proposed and seconded for approval, was put to the vote that full amount requested from the New Homes Bonus Fund.

RESOLVED

To award the full amount requested from the New Homes Bonus Fund, subject to the following condition:

·           No funding will be released until they have provided a signed copy of their lease covering the period quoted in their application and have started/ completed the recruitment process for the post.

A motion, proposed and seconded for approval, was put to the vote that full amount requested from the Capital Grants budget.

RESOLVED

To award the full amount requested from the Capital Grants budget, subject to the following conditions:

·           No funding will be released until they have provided a signed copy of their lease covering the period quoted in their application.

There was a New Homes Bonus and a Capital Grants budget application from Cumnor Parish Council, for play areas at two sites.

The Parish Council had applied to both schemes, but could only be funded by one of the two, as the bids were for the same project.

Judy Roberts spoke in support of the application

·           The Parish Council have significant reserves in the bank but the application (p12) gives an explanation from the applicant of their other commitments. There is also a £20,000 rolling surplus, which goes towards the maintenance of the equipment, including dealing with vandalism issues.

·           Other monies are coming from section 106 contributions.

The committee discussed this item.

A motion, proposed and seconded for approval, was put to the vote to award the full amount requested from the New Homes Bonus Fund, and nothing from the Capital Grants budget.

RESOLVED

To agree the motion as put.

The committee considered the application from the Matrix Arts Centre, at Sutton Courtenay under the Capital Grants budget for a building extension.

The officer gave a briefing as there were no public speakers.

The Arts Centre had finished paying off their mortgage in 2013 which they had been paying for 20 years.

A motion, proposed and seconded for approval, was put to the vote that the score for new facilities and activities would be raised to a 3. AGREED

A motion, proposed and seconded for approval, was put to the vote that the score for community benefit should be raised to a 3. DEFEATED

RESOLVED

To award a capital grant in line with the officers’ recommendation

After making their award decisions, the remaining Abingdon and North East Area budget for 2016/7 for each scheme was as follows:

New Homes Bonus: £1,386 (This is under the £5,000 minimum to reopen for applications and, assuming it is not required for other New Homes Bonus business, will be returned to general reserves at the end of the financial year.)

Community Grants: £8329 (This, together with other area committee underspends, will be redistributed between the committees for the next round of funding using the percentages agreed in the policy. Abingdon and North East Area Committee will receive 42.26 percent of the total capital budget available for the next round of applications.)

The officer circulated a document on how to get applicants involved in future schemes. The schemes would go to Vale Scrutiny Committee in the next week to consider minor alterations to the policies to make them fairer and more robust.