Issue - meetings

This report seeks approval from the Joint Management Committee to progress with the development of a Heritage Lottery Funding (HLF) Parks for People bid for the park, subject to sufficient funding match being secured.

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) had a number of different grant programmes to fund heritage projects across the UK.  The Parks for People grant programme offered grants for historic parks projects of up to £5 million.

The Committee received a report outlining proposals to develop a first-round application for the park, the timescales involved, and the financial implications.

The report sought the Committee’s approval to allocate funds to appoint consultants to support the preparation of the HLF bid application.  The Committee were advised that the London Borough of Sutton had recently been successful in securing lottery funding for Beddington Park and considered that appointing a consultant to prepare the required detailed and accurate information played a large part in the success of the bid.

The Committee was informed that the proposed figure of £15,000 requested to appoint a consultant was an estimate and that the sum of £10,000 identified in paragraph 5.4 of the report as being offset against this estimated cost referred to the projected budget savings for 2016/17.  However, it was again stressed that any savings to be achieved could not currently be accurately predicted.  It was agreed that the Committee would be updated on the position at the next meeting.

The Committee agreed that the HLF bid was an important project that, if successful, would help to secure the long term future of Nonsuch Park.

Accordingly, the Joint Management Committee:

(1)            Approved in principle the proposal to progress with an HLF Parks for People bid.

(2)            Agreed to allocate up to £15,000 from the 2016/17 Joint Management Committee revenue budget to appoint consultants to support the first round preparation of the HLF bid application.

(3)            Agreed that the submission of the first round HLF bid application would be subject to the identification and allocation of sufficient match funding towards the Parks for People bid, and would be the subject of a subsequent report to the Committee.