Proposal for community involvement in ‘section 106’ decisions

Councillor Chris Edge has made a proposal for comunity involvement in ‘Section 106’ projects. [These are improvements to an area, paid for by developers as a condition on the grant of planning permission.] The proposal will be put to the Wimbledon Community Forum on 2 December [see What’s on for more details.]
The proposal is that:

Merton’s community forums each set up a small group of residents and
ward councillors (the ‘Ideas Group’) to seek ideas for small local
improvements across their area.

Community groups and organisations, residents associations and
individuals will be encouraged to send in their ideas. The Ideas Groups will sift
them, only rejecting any that are clearly impractical, illegal or offensive. They
will work up the others into projects, with the people or groups who submitted
them, and put approximate costings on them. Projects will be prioritised, and
the list agreed or amended by the full community forum.

Projects agreed by the forums will be sent to the appropriate
departmental Implementation Officer at Merton Council. These officers
already have responsibility for matching projects to section 106 contributions
and other sources of funding that may be available.

Ideas Groups will meet as often as they think necessary, depending on
how many ideas are coming in, and what resources may be available at any
one time.

As this proposal is being written, residents in two areas– Raynes Park
and Longthornton – are arranging public meetings with their local councillors,
to put across the message that there may be funding available for residents’
ideas to be put into action; and how residents can become involved locally.
Other areas may want to follow suit, but it is up to the different community
forum areas to decide for themselves whether they want to operate on a
smaller area, or across the whole area covered by their forum. They should
bear in mind that there will not be any council officer support available to help
them organise locally below community forum level.

• Full text of Chris Edge's proposal paper 72.48 KB