With £20million available to Hastings over the next ten years the government has given a long list of things people might do with the money. The town can only spend 25% on ‘revenue’ items (salaries etc) with 75% earmarked for ‘capital’ – that is new assets or buildings.
HERE is the full prospectus.
Spending should be based on local priorities agreed by local people, so if you want to give us some idea of what you see as most important so we that can feed this to the board who are being set up to make decisions, we have a short survey open HERE.
Here’s the breakdown of the projects into Capital Expenditure and Revenue Expenditure lists:
Capital Expenditure
- public realm improvements
- street furniture
- regenerating a town square or high street
- Creating and improving green spaces, community gardens, watercourses and embankments
- regeneration of existing parks or community gardens
- improvements to a canal towpath
- urban and riparian tree planting
- improving access to existing parks
- development of a new park
- development of a new community garden
- support grants for local businesses to upgrade current infrastructure to make energy savings
- taking a whole systems approach to investing in infrastructure to deliver effective decarbonisation and energy efficiency for buildings and transport and beyond
- constructing new or updating existing defences to enhance community resilience against natural hazards like flooding or coastal erosion
- developing, restoring or refurbishing local natural, cultural and heritage assets and sites
- Investment and support for digital infrastructure for local community facilities
- Modernisation of social housing
- capital funding can be used to insulate walls, install underfloor insulation, install loft insulation, install double glazing units, and replace gas boilers with low carbon heating systems such as heat pumps
- supporting with neighbourhood public realm improvements
- Provide healthy and climate-resilient homes support locally
- establishing a ‘healthy housing’ advice hub space
- mitigating the effects of extreme heat on homes
- using funding capacity for domestic water-saving measures
- developing and supplying emergency flood preparedness kits to local homes
- fitting property flood resilience measures in homes at risk of flooding
- Skills provision tailored to local opportunities and skills gaps
- equipment and facilities for a specific programme or training course run by a skills provider or college linked to a local employer in need of skilled workers
- green skills courses, including retraining for those in high carbon sectors
- Funding to improve pedestrian and cycle infrastructure and connectivity
- creating new or improving existing footpaths and cycle paths
- installing new or upgrading existing street lighting
- installing secure cycle parking facilities
- implementing traffic calming measures
- creating new or improving existing crossing facilities
- wayfinding improvements
- measures to mitigate severance
- Funding for new, or improvements to local road networks to improve access within and to the town
- traffic management improvements to relieve congestion
- road safety
- highway maintenance (including potholes)
- Funding to improve rail connectivity and access
- developing business cases for and delivering new stations along existing lines
- improving accessibility and journey quality at and around stations
- improving passenger information
- Reducing vehicle emissions
- funding for electric vehicle charging facilities
- funding to procure zero emission buses and supporting infrastructure
- funding to subsidise the procurement of zero emission buses and supporting infrastructure by bus operators
- Design and oversight of the built and landscaped environment to ‘design out’ crime and encourage positive behaviour
- using Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles to redesign parks, streets, and alleyways
- encouraging the active use of public spaces throughout the daytime, evening, and night
- improving streetlighting
- fitting or upgrading CCTV
- installing multi-functional street furniture
- installing signage in town centres to reinforce crime prevention messages and deter anti-social behaviour
- using pavement markings or physical barriers to discourage loitering or clustering in high-risk areas
- replacing graffiti-prone walls with community-designed art projects such as murals
- using public installations that both beautify and promote safety in town centres
- installing digital or physical noticeboards in town centres where residents and businesses can report issues, highlight community events, or promote safety campaigns
Revenue Expenditure- delivery of outreach, engagement, or participatory programmes for community spaces
- changes to management of green spaces and verges
- organising event programmes for local assets and sites
- funding to support maker spaces
- support for local art galleries, museums, and libraries to host exhibitions
- support for artists to display and showcase work
- funding for cultural, heritage and creative events
- support for outreach, engagement, participatory programmes as part of wider local arts, cultural, heritage and creative activities
- support for the establishment and development of cultural, heritage collaborative networks to share knowledge locally
- Provide safe and supportive environments for people with experience of homelessness and rough sleeping
- supporting community-based faith and voluntary sector homelessness services to improve accommodation infrastructure and support services
- enabling community-based services to work with those in the community (including those in temporary accommodation) to prevent a return to rough sleeping
- supporting larger commissioned homelessness and rough sleeping charities that alleviate wider statutory duties
- running community engagement and consultation processes for estate regeneration or other neighbourhood renewal projects
- Establish land trusts for the purpose of creating community-led housing to meet local needs
- incorporating a community land trust (CLT)
- using funding to help with building CLT membership, leadership, skills, and technical advice throughout a project
- hiring a manager for the CLT project-specific costs at the pre-development stage
- hiring bid writers for grants to build properties, acquire land, and buy-up properties for renovation
- Support local community initiatives that support people in bringing down their home energy bills and improve the energy efficiency of their homes
- running community energy groups to help local residents
- running in-person retrofitting advice sessions in community spaces to improve engagement with retrofitting
- Support to improve awareness of, and access to, local provision that moves people closer to and into sustained employment
- additional support to help economically inactive people into work
- Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET) prevention and reduction activity
- local interventions to improve the retention of disabled people and people with health conditions within the workplace
- Enabling community wealth building
- creating a regional mutual or community bank
- supporting local employment schemes offering business rate relief for those businesses that become Living Wage Accredited
- Developing and expanding existing local business support and networks for smaller businesses and social enterprises
- working with the local Growth Hub in England, Business Wales, Scottish Enterprise or Enterprise NI, and partners such as Chambers of Commerce and Business and Intellectual Property Centres on developing or leveraging existing relevant local business advice, support and networks
- strengthening provision for the local growth hub to support businesses at all stages of their development to start, sustain, grow and innovate
- supporting the existing regional delivery of Made Smarter Adoption in England
- bidding for and host international business events and conferences
- supporting the establishment and ongoing running of an open air market
- improvements to town centre retail and service sector infrastructure, with wrap around support for small businesses, utilising existing support channels where possible
- business support activity for local entrepreneurs
- Funding to support the development, improvement, and promotion of the visitor economy
- grants for the development, promotion, and upkeep of local tourist attractions
- developing other visitor experiences centred around the local offering
- campaigns highlighting the local area and its culture, heritage, leisure, and visitor attractions, aimed at both residents and visitors
- initiatives to encourage visitors from further afield to visit and stay for longer periods in the region
- Measures to improve community cohesion
- co-creating cohesion action plans by local authorities, agencies and partners
- projects that bring people together from different groups
- projects which celebrate and explore different cultures and lives
- projects which build relationships within and between communities
- projects which build capacity, capability and awareness in communities
- Funding for impactful volunteering and social action projects to develop social and human capital in local place
- supporting local volunteering groups
- supporting people, including young people, to develop volunteering and social action projects locally
- Investment in capacity building and infrastructure support for local civil society, youth and community groups
- renovating and developing existing or new community spaces
- community-based small grants and loans schemes
- developing community forums, youth engagements, governance structures, volunteering and social action projects and communication channels
- Supporting community-level health provision
- community mental health hubs
- social prescribing provision
- measures to encourage healthy eating such as community-level fruit and vegetable prescription schemes
- pilot programmes aimed at improving local health outcomes
- signposting to free NHS digital support tools
- Integration and co-location of health and wellbeing services
- bringing together different health and wellbeing services under one roof in an accessible high street location
- turning disused or under-used high street buildings into health and wellbeing hubs
- utilising retail spaces for healthcare initiatives
- Funding for local sport and activity facilities, events, teams and leagues, to foster community engagement and connection
- refurbishing and maintaining existing sports facilities
- funding for community sports leagues
- redeveloping an unused area to build sports facilities
- developing new 3G sports pitches and other sports facilities
- Funding to support preventative public health initiatives and campaigns
- funding for support groups or specialist advice services on public health issues
- encouraging the use of free campaign materials from NHS Better Health
- Funding can be used to improve local bus services
- making improvements to local bus infrastructure
- bringing forward delivery of schemes set out in the local Bus Service Improvement Plan in England, or equivalents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
- revenue support for new or existing local bus services
- improving the quality of bus information for passengers and marketing of the local bus service offer
- reducing or simplifying fares
- Policing interventions to target crime prevention in specific locations, in particular town centres
- community or town wardens
- hotspot policing
- problem-oriented crime prevention and enforcement