Will Dick Page spend his penny?
After sharing his £1,000 Brighton and Hove City Council ward budget equally between Brighton Bike Hub, Elm Grove School and Hanover Action Group, the Green councillor for Hanover and Elm Grove is left with small change.
It made him the butt of a few good humoured jokes at the council’s Neighbourhoods, Inclusion, Communities and Equalities Committee on Monday (2 July).
Councillors unanimously backed plans to continue with the £60,000 ward budgets project for 2019-20.
So far more than 65 organisations in the city have benefited from donations.
Moulsecoomb and Bevendean Labour councillors Mo Marsh, Anne Meadows and Daniel Yates pooled their resources.
They are supporting the work of the free lunch and activity club charity Chomp in their ward and a project to revive the children’s playground at Farm Green.
Mr Yates said: “As a ward with over 40 per cent of children living in poverty we decided to focus our monies on projects working specifically with these children in the first instance.
“We gave £750 to Chomp in Moulsecoomb, another £750 to Chomp in Bevendean and the final £1,500 towards the Friends of Farm Green project to rebuild the playground at Farm Green rec in Bevendean.
“With the assistance of our £1,500 they were able to make a successful bid for a £70,000 grant to renew the play area – that’s a great investment return for the whole community!”
Chomp holds summer holiday activities for children and provides a hot lunch for families.
Friends of Farm Green works to improve the park, from weeding to managing the play area.
In Hangleton and Knoll he three ward councillors combined their money to put £3,000 towards security fencing by the entrance to Hove Medical Centre.
Conservative councillor Dawn Barnett said: “There’s been so much anti-social behaviour along the pathway down to Hangleton Road.
“It’s causing problems and frightening the elderly living in sheltered housing by knocking on windows. People were up all night.”
The £3,000 was topped up with a donation from the medical centre.
Mrs Barnett said that all was quiet and peaceful in the area now.
An innovative project to harvest rain run-off from buildings in Norfolk Square and fill the water butts in the gardens had support from Green councillors Phélim Mac Cafferty, Ollie Sykes, Tom Druitt and Alex Phillips.
Councillor Sykes helped build the pipe system which was completed in late April.
During heavy rain on Tuesday 1 May the system harvested about 450 litres of rainwater for the gardens.
In East Brighton, Councillor Nancy Platts described the £3,000 spent on the new parkrun as “something free for life”.
She said: “parkrun, having walkers and joggers as well as runners, means it is open to everyone of all ages and abilities.
“It’s also a great way to meet quite a few people if you’ve just moved to the area.”
The latest figures show just £2,363.11 left to spend out of the £60,000 set aside for councillors to distribute to good causes in their wards.
I hope they didnt spend £4,000 on collecting rainwater.That Container holds 1000 litres maximum so how many containers are there and how did the transfer it across the road?