TRANSITIONAL FUNDING BID

Cllr Clare Pritchard recently attended the North West Housing Forum at Manchester Town Hall to lobby DCLG to continue with transitional funding for Hyndburn. The coalition government took the decision to abandon the Housing Market Renewal Progamme which has resulted in the local council losing several million pounds from various regeneration funding streams every year and Cllr Pritchard has fought to retain this money in order to continue with projects around the borough such as the Woodnook scheme.

HMR transitional funding has already ended and another transitional stream for the 12 most deprived Councils (of which Hyndburn is one) is due to end in 2013. Funding for Hyndburn currently stands at £2.163m for the year and, unlike some other boroughs, the Labour-run council has channelled this into capital projects rather than revenue which has ensured that services will not be affected when this money is no longer available. However, it will mean a considerable reduction in the amount available to spend on new community projects and it is hoped that all or part of this second stream can be retained by Hyndburn Borough Council by lobbying of the responsible minister in Westminster by Cllr Pritchard.