Safer High Streets funds

Question

Our Parish Council has been offered funding under the Safer High Streets initiative but is struggling to identify the best use for the funds. What have other Councils done?

Answer 1

I'm surprised you're being offered access to this at Parish level. The guidance on its use is very specific and it lends itself to larger scale initiatives. The guidance document is on Gov.uk at

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reopening-high-streets-safely-fund-guidance

Comments

As a guide, the level of funding seems to equate to about 90p per head of population.

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The guidance says for applicants says "Our expectation is that funding should be managed at the lowest responsible tier of local government where it is possible and appropriate to do so."   Who decides which tier of govt from the applicants is possible and appropriate?

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The Government likes to be seen to be delegating to the local level, but when you look at the proposed uses of this fund, there's action planning (in which they name parish councils as a consultee, not the lead body), there are public information campaigns, which aren't really bread and butter for parish councils (salaries? consultants?) and temporary highway modifications/shared spaces etc, which are the responsibility of the highway authority, so it's good to see district and county councils talking to their parishes, but there isn't much here for parishes to get excited about.