Undertaking a Neighbourhood Development Plan is a big project for our small community. We have successfully applied for grants to cover nearly all of the anticipated costs.
The work could not be done without the assistance of many volunteers, and also the funding we have received from two grants.
Supporting Communities in Neighbourhood Planning
In January 2014 we were awarded a £7000 government grant from the Supporting Communities in Neighbourhood Planning programme, which was the maximum available for an NDP. This covers the administrative costs of the project, basic costs of the community consultation events and activities, professional help with developing and analysing the questionnaire data, the services of a professional planning consultant for advice and assistance, and some basic costs of printing.
See the schedule detailing the grant award and what it paid for: Schedule II – Humber, Ford & Stoke Prior Group Parish Council
An application for variation of the grant budget was approved in October 2014: Grant Variation Request Form
The full grant was spent by 31 December 2014, and the final grant monitoring report submitted on 13 January 2015: Grant final monitoring report draft
Big Lottery Awards for All programme
In March 2014 we were awarded £5137 from the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All programme, for “Enhancing Community Involvement in the Humber, Ford & Stoke Prior Neighbourhood Development Plan”.
This has bought data-projection equipment, has paid for the development and maintenance of the NDP web-pages, and also some of the costs of the consultation events. It also enables us to design and print our consultation documents to a professional standard, including the residents’ questionnaires, Our Emerging Plan, and the draft and final Plans which will be given to every household.
In October 2014 an application was approved for variation of the grant budget: up to £400 of consultation event costs can be spent on printing costs.
In April 2015 an application was approved for an extension of the grant period to 18 October 2015, and a variation of the grant budget so that the remaining £2600 unspent can be spent on printing formal consultation copies of the draft Plan for every household and/or pre-referendum draft Plans.
Budget and spending
A budget for the NDP project has been approved by Council: NDP budget 2014-15
The Steering Committee is responsible for monitoring expenditure against the budget, and the Clerk provides a report on this to each meeting: NDP project spending 2014-15