Barrovians are being urged to ‘Brighten our Corner’ with a series of mini grants from the town council for inititiatives in each town council ward. Two thousand pounds a year has been made available to each of the wards and councillors will be consulting fully with residents on how it will be spent. This equates to almost £100,000 in funding over the council term.
Councillor Steve Herbert from Risedale Ward, who put forward the idea said, “what struck me when campaigning was how much local folk just wanted town councillors to get on with listening and helping with the small things that could improve the ward- not grandiose schemes. For me, a town council is not about providing another layer of politics but about going to people directly and saying, “what would you like us to do? We are elected to represent the streets we are from and try and make some improvements.”
The initiative was supported unanimously by Barrow Town councillors on July 18th at the Town Hall. Each ward is tasked with holidng three different listening oppotunities to determine what local communities want.
“The ball is in each community’s court. It can be a clean up operation, a collection, repairs or anything else we might need money to do,” said Mr Herbert.
He agreed with his Risedale counterpart Councillor Palmer to work further on the process of application.
Town councillors will be contacting residents in the next few weeks for ideas. erber
