Salford community groups get £35,000 cash injection
They have been selected by a panel of Salford residents after the housing organisation, which manages 10,500 council homes in central Salford, announced it was offering local groups the chance to share £35,000 of funding. Groups were invited to bid for between £50 and £5,000 to help projects that will improve the areas where they live.
Gardening club, Pendleton Cracked Pots, is to receive its request for just over £2,500 to buy plants and pots to help it continue to look after the community spaces and gardens in the immediate vicinity of four high-rise blocks of flats and a sheltered accommodation unit in Langworthy.
It intends to use some of the money to buy flower towers to screen an unsightly recycling unit at the entrance to the community.
"A large proportion of the people living in the flats live alone so outdoor spaces are vital to stop them from becoming isolated and to provide a pleasant outdoor setting for people to socialise in," explained Salix Homes neighbourhood champion, Derek Wunderley.
Rialto Ravers Community Choir is to receive £1,380 for room hire costs, refreshments, transport and external tutoring.
While WOW or Women of the World has been awarded £450 to pay for a Christmas party for women and children members of the local community group which is for women on low incomes, women of black, minority or ethnic origins and asylum seekers.
The funding is being made available by Salix Homes, which also helps to provide housing regeneration and renewal services for Salford residents, as part of its ‘Your Salix, Your Say' initiative to improve neighbourhoods.
It is the first time that it has given the community power to spend money through participatory budgeting which allows residents to decide how to allocate part of a public budget.
Rob Wakefield, director of finance and ICT at Salix Homes, said: "We put money into community projects every year but this year we decided to do things differently by giving local groups the chance to apply for the money to go towards a project they were involved in.
"This way the money will be spent where local people think it is most needed."
Other groups benefiting include Swinton Moorside Cricket Club, Broomedge Tenants Association, Longbow Tenants and Residents Association, HBHG Development Trust, Friends of Ordsall Park, Future Women's Group, Oliver's Youth Club, Albion Residents Association, New Barracks Tenant Management Organisation, The Islington Estate Tenants and Residents Association, Vertical Villages Tenants and Residents Association, and
The Kersal Vale Allotment Association.
Kersal Vale has successfully applied for £4,000 to buy two bee hives, tools, six bee suits, fencing, warning signs and a shed so that it can set up a bee yard on its allotments.
"At this present time there are no honey bees to be found within the Lower Kersal area and it is essential to have honey bees to help pollinate our crops and flowers," said Salix Homes champion for the area Christine Duffin.
