Ladywell ward assembly held its priority setting workshop to agree the priorities for the projects and initiatives that will be eligible for NCIL funding.
Lewisham has been collecting the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) on new developments since 2015 and has now decided that 25 per cent of those funds will be made available to local communities through the Neighbourhood CIL.
The current NCIL pot for Ladywell is £49,064.13 and the workshop was the ward’s first opportunity to review the priorities which had been submitted over the last few weeks through the council’s online commonplace ward consultation.
Five top priorities were clear in the consultation: transport and streets; open/green spaces and nature; community safety; air quality; and community facilities. The assembly decided to add a sixth – youth activities – in line with the ward priorities.
The council will now publish the list of agreed priorities via the council website and the ward specific commonplace site and then issue an open call for projects that meet the priorities in early 2020.
The council will then aim to run ward workshops to help develop project ideas. Once the list of projects is published the assembly will discuss and prioritise them.
James Lee, Lewisham’s Director of Strategy, Partnerships & Improvement, who gave the NCIL presentation to the ward assembly, said Ladywell had agreed six priorities against which potential funding bids could now be assessed.
“A call for funding applications will be launched once all wards have agreed their priorities … there’ll now be more work with the community to help work up bids ahead of final allocations at an Assembly meeting in mid-2020”.
James’ presentation made clear that projects that are eligible for NCIL funding will not be limited to infrastructure projects. There will be a broad range of options including funding community initiatives and activities.
In Camden NCIL funds have been used to maintain an after school club, redesign aoad hospital ward to create a dementia friendly space, help fund restoration works to a museum and fund the running costs of a library for two years.
Since 2015, Lewisham has collected sunbstantial amounts of CIL because of developments across the borough – 2015/16: £1,440,463.66; 2016/17: £4,487,774.86; and 2017/18: £3,359,091.04