Votes cast as public shows support  for community projects

Residents of Aird and Loch Ness (Ward 13) had the chance to cast their votes on Saturday at the Aird and Loch Ness – Your Ward, Your Cash, Your Choice Community participatory budgeting event at the Craigmonie Centre, Drumnadrochit.

Participatory budgeting is a process of allocating funding by empowering local people to decide how funding should be spent. Aird and Loch Ness Councillors agreed to use a participatory budgeting process to distribute £15,000 of the local ward discretionary budget and £5000 of the Scottish Government Community Choices fund. A local organising group who were keen to engage as many people as possible designed the process.

Over 100 people took part by assembling on Saturday morning to hear about new projects and vote for the projects that they thought should be funded. 16 out of the 30 groups who put their projects forward were successful and will now receive funding to help put their ideas into action.

Local Councillors: Jean Davis, Margaret Davidson, Helen Carmichael and Hamish Wood said, “We are very happy that so many people were able to take part.  We would like to thank everyone who came along and made the event such an excellent success.

“Having an event like this is more than a way of allocating grant funding. Participatory budgeting is about engaging with local people, mobilising new groups and creating an opportunity for the community to come together.

“All of the projects who presented were excellent so it is unfortunate that we are unable to fund them all. We are delighted that we have received very positive feedback and new ideas from the community about how we can improve the process in the future.”

The successful bids were awarded as follows:

ENDS