How Do You Want £347,064 To Be Spent?

Shepway District Council Will receive in 2016/17 £347,064 from central govt for building 992 new homes across the district.

The government will match the council tax raised from new homes for the first six years, which for an affordable home will mean an extra £350 per house each year.The bonus will also apply to any empty properties brought back into use.

The amount of extra cash an area will receive can be easily seen using the New Homes Bonus Calculator

But as they used to say on Blue Peter,  Here’s one we prepared earlier it is for Shepway. So we can see SDC are going to get the figure mentioned above.

Residents of Shepway can now start talking to SDC about how they would like to spend the money – whether council tax discounts for local residents, boosting frontline services like rubbish collection or providing local facilities like swimming pools and leisure centres.

The minister also said it will be up to the local communities (not SDC) and not Whitehall to decide how the building bonus is spent.

What the Calculator shows us is that there were 641 empty properties across Shepway.

The Affordable Housing Supply rose by 120 houses. Do remember, affordable outside London is £250,000. The Housing stock across Shepway is 49,889 as of Oct 15 (All figures via the Department for Communities and Local Govt),

With SDC wishing to building up to 12,000 more houses on the Otterpool Park site and other housing elsewhere across the district in the coming years, if this Govt and the next continue to pay £350 per house, SDC are looking to receive £4.2 million just from the Otterpool Park  site alone.

Anyway as we know SDC are to receive £347,064 for 2016/17 how would you the residents of Shepway like to see it spent? Do contact your local Cllr and let them know how you wish the £347,064 to be spent otherwise SDC will use it to pay off their very sizeable debt, when it could be put to other uses.

You can see from the excel spreadsheet above SDC have received nearly £2 million since 2011. What have they spent it on? And where on their website, have they – SDC – announced that our communities across Shepway can decide on how this money is/was to be spent?

What has the money be spent on since 2011?

Shepwayvox