Council says: More cash for community groups
kl | 06.10.2005 11:44
Over £70,000 has become available through the Neighbourhood Drug Community Chest Fund for community groups in Nottingham City to engage young people in activities.
The Nottingham Neighbourhood Drugs Team has been working closely with local groups to provide youth diversionary activities to those most at risk of substance misuse and drug related crime.
£80,000 has been given to over 60 new and valuable schemes in the last three years including the Radford Music Studio, Bilborough Boxing Club, and The Inner City Youth Movement. The fund has also helped to secure properties, alleyways and buildings that have been subject to drug misuse and dealing.
Nottingham Youth Basketball Club Development Officer Nick Robb said, 'The club has gone from strength to strength and the grant from the community chest has made a significant contribution, providing funding to replace the dilapidated basketball hoops in the gyms we use and providing kits for the players. The kids who come to the club come from some very tough backgrounds, but basketball provides a very meaningful and positive experience for them, and many have ambitions to become professional players or coaches in the future.
The Community Chest accepts funding bids from any community group or project, for initiatives that will contribute to reducing problems caused by drug misuse. Successful applications must demonstrate their commitment and the feasibility of sustaining the project on a long - term basis.
A new newsletter is being launched and will be sent out to all local community groups in Nottingham explaining how the fund could help them.
The Neighbourhood Drugs Team can give help and advice to people who would like to apply. The deadlines for applications are the end of October. Anyone can contact the Neighbourhood Drugs Team on 0115 9150306 or email
ndt@nottinghamcity.gov.uk for further information.
£80,000 has been given to over 60 new and valuable schemes in the last three years including the Radford Music Studio, Bilborough Boxing Club, and The Inner City Youth Movement. The fund has also helped to secure properties, alleyways and buildings that have been subject to drug misuse and dealing.
Nottingham Youth Basketball Club Development Officer Nick Robb said, 'The club has gone from strength to strength and the grant from the community chest has made a significant contribution, providing funding to replace the dilapidated basketball hoops in the gyms we use and providing kits for the players. The kids who come to the club come from some very tough backgrounds, but basketball provides a very meaningful and positive experience for them, and many have ambitions to become professional players or coaches in the future.
The Community Chest accepts funding bids from any community group or project, for initiatives that will contribute to reducing problems caused by drug misuse. Successful applications must demonstrate their commitment and the feasibility of sustaining the project on a long - term basis.
A new newsletter is being launched and will be sent out to all local community groups in Nottingham explaining how the fund could help them.
The Neighbourhood Drugs Team can give help and advice to people who would like to apply. The deadlines for applications are the end of October. Anyone can contact the Neighbourhood Drugs Team on 0115 9150306 or email
ndt@nottinghamcity.gov.uk for further information.
kl
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Councils must be and seen rto be accounmtable to tghe communitues
07.10.2005 02:31
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MORE than enough CASH has been granted to local councils in the UK over the past 30 years by successive central Government administrations.
The deficit is NOT in the cash that the current BLAIR government has been injecting into the coffers of ‘local councils’
The deficit has been in the absence of accountability for that money to the local community in the area of each council.
How we get that accountability from the 'elected' councils is the biggest challenge.
Yet all that the Councils are ever heard about is their alleged lack of sufficient cash
These councils are beyond the pale.
They have discredited the idea of local democracy.
they never stand up for the local communities where issues of serious concern arise is always a few activists and totally skint individuals who have to take up the issues.
The local council is only ever willing to recognise the existence ‘the community’ when they need to use that ‘link’ to show their alleged affinity with the community.
For the rest of the time they show nothing but contempt and hostility to the community.
How do they do that ?
How do they get away with such hostility to the very principles which they routinely recite in their ritualistic applications to John Prescott and allied regional departments for the cash?
Is John Precsott the right source of demand for accountability from local councils?
If he is then how come that the local Councils remain as defiant to the local communities as they ever have ever ?
In fact the local councils, including the majority in the larger urban areas and in London are becoming unbearably aggressive on issues of extreme seriousness?
How is it that in London there massive AUTHORITARIAN powers are being given de facto and de jure to Blair-backed mayor Ken Livsnsgtioen who has already pocketed the support of several inner London councils his
socially discriminatory and divisive projects?
If ‘drugs’ is the focus of such councils as the one being claimed the Nottingham council publicity, how is it that in Nottingham, the voice of the community is not playing at the top of the decision-making table where decisions are being mace about the exact causes, links, manoeuvres and perpetration of the drugs related criminality and the apparent failures fo the programme to rid the inner city Nottingham of such crime/
Something very seriously democratic is missing in the thinking of the ‘serious officers’ on that Council who are in turn abusing their positions of influence over ‘leading’ councillors who in turn defy the community yet gloat about their Council’s alleged links with the same community when pleading for more cash for the Council.
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