Pride in Place

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Absolutely. We are trying to make this as permissive as possible, and we want communities to genuinely choose the schemes and projects that will work in their areas. As long as the community represented in the neighbourhood board are behind an area and are confident that it delivers value for money for them, we will step aside and let them get on with it, because that is absolutely the right approach.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

My constituents in Rowner were delighted to hear that they had been chosen for pride in place funding, but they are now a little bit worried, and I hope that the Minister can help us. My constituents fear that rather than the money being spent on projects that will change lives in Rowner in a meaningful way, our Liberal Democrat council will attempt to siphon some of it off to bankroll one of its vanity projects, namely the Criterion, a dilapidated former bingo hall. I am pleased that this funding comes with some flexibility, but what protections will the Minister introduce to prevent the money from being frittered away on white elephants by unscrupulous councils?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I shall not comment on the specifics of the council, but what I will say is that we are very clear about the fact that the local community should be in the driving seat. The funding is flowing through councils because they have accounting officer responsibility, but the decision needs to be made by the neighbourhood boards. My plea to Members on both sides of the House is this: get the neighbourhood boards up and running. The recruitment of the chair is key, and that is a joint endeavour between local authorities and MPs. The MPs must be consulted, and must have the final say in who the chair is. The chair can then ensure that the right voices are sitting round the table. Ultimately, the funding will go to back an investment and regeneration plan that the board will develop. That will make it very hard for particular long-standing projects to be funded: this must be part of a plan that is supported by the neighbourhood board, and the investment will flow into that.