Contact: Frances Martin, Community Strategy Officer Ext: 5122

1. Summary

1.1 This report makes recommendations in respect of a number of applications for funding from various LSPs across the County, which have either been approved by the Chief Executive; are subject to approval by the Executive Member for Community Development and Regeneration; or which require referral to the Leader for approval.

2. Background

2.1 A budget for supporting projects derived from the County Council's statutory duty to prepare a community strategy has been set up and this includes a budget for pump priming the Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) and to develop further community strategies.

2.2 Each of the 11 LSP's are encouraged to bid for money from this budget to support the development of their LSPs and for the pump priming of projects.

2.3 The budget is also available for the development and implementation of the Hampshire Strategic Partnership.

2.4 The Chief Executive can approve amounts of less than £2000. The Executive Member for Community Development and Regeneration can approve amounts between £2000 and £5000. Amounts exceeding £5000 must be approved by the Executive Member and referred, with a recommendation to the Leader for decision.

2.5 Appendix B sets out the funding criteria for which bids will be approved. They are intended as guidelines and not prescriptive rules.

3. Current bids

3.1 As approved by the Chief Executive, the following bid has been received:

3.1.2 The sum of £2,000 from the Hampshire Strategic Partnership for a contribution towards a conference on affordable housing due to take place on the 28^th October 2003.

3.1.3 Affordable housing is one of the most pressing issues facing Hampshire at present. Significant increases in house prices in recent years have not been matched by a corresponding increase in incomes. Affordable housing is also highlighted as an issue under theme 4: Infrastructure, Environment and Transport in the draft Community Strategy for Hampshire.

3.1.4 The conference is supported by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Local Authorities (HIOWLA) and the aims of the conference are:

· To raise awareness and shared understanding of the scale of the problems created by the shortage of affordable housing in Hampshire by bringing together key agencies, businesses and organisations.

· To identify actions to address affordable housing provision, especially in relation to meeting the needs through the provision of a range of affordable housing initiatives, delivering sufficient key worker housing and providing affordable housing in rural areas.

· To consider how these actions could be implemented.

3.2 The following bid is for consideration by the Executive Member for Community Development and Regeneration:

3.2.1 The sum of £2,500 from the Basingstoke and Deane LSP to contribute towards the costs of a facilitated workshop for the Basingstoke and Deane LSP, through which the partners will seek to address the following issues.

· Decide on the priority areas that should feature in the action plan and bring clarity on what the LSP can do to add value in the priority areas identified

· Explore what implementation actually means

· Agree where decisions are made

The facilitated workshop will help the Basingstoke and Deane LSP start action planning and to ensure that a manageable number of actions are identified.

3.3.2 The unspent funds from 2002/03 (£119,252) has been agreed to be carried over to the budget for this financial year (2003/04). Added together this gives a total of £309,252. Following the above approved bids the total spend in relation to the budget is £191,658 leaving £117,594 (see attached appendix A).

Recommendations

The following recommendation is sought:

1. To approve the allocation of £2,500 for the Basingstoke and Deane LSP to contribute towards a facilitated workshop for the LSP, in order so that they can begin to develop their action planning for their Community Strategy.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

File FM Exec Member Location: Community planning/committee

reports