Who Gets to Decide How £20m Is Spent in Park Wood, Senacre, Shepway and Mangravet?

Thirteen people - mostly residents, alongside a handful of councillors, charities and local businesses - have been appointed to decide how up to £20 million of Government money gets spent in four of Maidstone's neighbourhoods over the next ten years.

Pride in Place is a Government scheme that hands the spending decisions to a local board rather than routing the money through the council or a Whitehall department directly - the pitch is that people who live in Park Wood, Senacre, Shepway and Mangravet know better than officials what those neighbourhoods actually need. The programme covers those four areas specifically, not the whole borough, and is meant to fund improvements to opportunities, wellbeing, community spaces and what the council calls "neighbourhood pride" over a ten-year period rather than a single one-off project.

The board is chaired by Dave Creasey, a community leader with more than 30 years' experience in the voluntary and statutory sectors and over two decades working specifically in Shepway and Park Wood. He's joined by resident representatives Chloe Hubbard, Sherry Johnson and Stacy Turner; Emma Tanner of The Princess Project; Gary Cook of New Line Learning Academy; Genette Pinwill of housing association Golding Homes; Leon Mileham of Connect Church; Matt Arnold of Skillcrown Homes; business representative Kandeeban Thanabalan; Maidstone MP Helen Whately; Kent County Councillor Linden Kemkaran; and Maidstone Borough Councillor Maureen Cleator.

Park Wood already has recent form as a target for this kind of investment - the former Heather House site there reopened this year as The Heathers, a new community centre, sports facilities and 11 family homes built on the site of a 1972 building. Pride in Place is a bigger and longer-term commitment than that single scheme: rather than one council-led project, it's ten years of funding with a resident-majority board deciding what gets built or run next, which means the shape of it will depend heavily on what this Board actually prioritises.

Independent Chair Dave Creasey said: "Too often, things happen to communities rather than being shaped by the people who live there... I want residents to feel proud of where they live and confident that they can influence the future of their community." Councillor David Naghi, Cabinet Member for Community Cohesion and Safety, called it "a once-in-a-generation opportunity for these communities." The council says the Board will spend the coming months working with residents to identify priorities, with community engagement activities to follow - no specific projects or spending timetable have been announced yet. Source: Maidstone Borough Council