The Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy consultation, the first of its kind for a local authority, gave residents the power to vote to decide where the new investment goes. In another first, NCIL money will be redistributed among the borough’s most deprived areas, as part of the Council’s ongoing work to tackle inequality.
The NCIL Ward Fund was launched in August 2019 with over 137,000 flyers being delivered to households within the borough inviting people to take part in the Commonplace consultation exercise.
Using the Commonplace website, people were asked to either identify issues within the ward that they would like to see addressed and / or submit ideas for projects that would benefit the ward. In addition to this they could read through the suggestions and ‘like’ ideas already submitted. By its close there were 17,733 contributions to the Commonplace NCIL consultation. Council Officers then went through all the comments and suggestions for each ward, breaking them down into key priority areas.
The Ward assembly meetings were used to ratify the priority areas with each Ward assembly having the option to add a further priority. We will be launching the NCIL Ward Fund in autumn 2021 and more information will be provided nearer the time.
For more information about the consultation and to look at the results for individual wards please visit the Commonplace website.