Councillor’s Pride Fund swells to support local communities
A fund to support local communities has been given a boost after Telford & Wrekin Council has doubled the amount of funding available, to £10,000 for each councillor.
The Councillor’s Pride Fund is money allocated to each councillor to make a difference in their local areas. It gives them the opportunity to support projects of any size in their ward area, whether that be encouraging community participation, local area improvements and other projects that benefit the local community, or helping communities to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
As part of Telford& Wrekin Councils budget for 2022/23, each councillor will now receive an extra £5,000 in their fund, on top of the £5,000 they normally have, for the next twelve months.
This means councillors now have £10,000 each to use to support projects, including helping groups in their local communities recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and also supporting the green spaces that have been so important to residents over the course of the pandemic.
Councillor Paul Watling (Labour), Cabinet Member for Co-Operative Communities, Engagement and Partnerships, said:
“The Councillor’s Pride Fund has helped our communities better support each other in the places where they live. During the last 18 months, this has been more important than ever and is why we have increased each councillor’s fund to £10,000.
“Feedback from ward councillors highlights how even small amounts of money can have a significant and long-lasting impact on communities and people’s wellbeing. Breakfasts for young people to tackle food poverty, Laptops for Learning and wellbeing packs for people on their own at Christmas are things that really do make a big difference, and why the increased funding is such great news.”
Over the last twelve months, much of the support provided by the Councillor’s Pride Fund has been reflective of the global pandemic. Grants from the funding pot supported by match funding, meant that more than 240 children in Telford and Wrekin benefited from a free laptop to support their ongoing education at home whilst schools were closed. This supported the Laptops for Learning project, which provided more than 700 laptops across the borough in total.
Funds also supported breakfast packs which provided around 200,000 breakfasts for children who receive free school meals, as well as festive meals for those people on their own and isolated at Christmas. Other projects that benefited in the last12 months included a tree planting scheme in parks in Newport to support local aims to reduce the town’s impact on climate change as well as supporting the council’s aim for the borough to be carbon neutral by 2030.
In many cases Parish and Town Councils have provided match-funding, thereby doubling the benefit to the community or specific project.
Applications to the Councillor’s Pride Fund can only be made by councillors, or by groups invited to apply by their local councillor. Proposals must be submitted by 31 January2023 to apply to the 2022/23 fund, which opens shortly and runs until March 2023.
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Notes to editors
Since 2011 the Councillor’s Pride Fund has donated £918,000 to projects in their local communities. Recipients include community and voluntary groups, Town and Parish Councils and local schools, with grants ranging in size from £50 to £2,000.
