Funding success to help Rotherham Council build stronger communities

Latest news in Yorkshire: August 11, 2017 10:13:02 AM

Local residents are set to benefit from a range of projects to strengthen local communities and ease pressure on services.

Rotherham Council and its partners have been successful in a bid for £1.3m worth of Government funding.

The council has been awarded a share of the new funding pot, which is designed to help local authorities meet the changing needs of communities in light of migration.

Tackling rogue landlords who take advantage of vulnerable people, providing additional youth work and support to families, and helping people to develop English language skills are among the projects which will be funded by the money.

Cllr Chris Read, Leader of the Council, said the investment was a boost for the authority’s ongoing work to strengthen local communities.

He said: “This is welcome news of government investment that will help us to meet some of the needs and challenges of changing communities. We want to ensure that everyone can meet their responsibilities as a resident in the borough, and equally that everyone has the chance to succeed.

“Although Rotherham has not seen migration on the scale of many other parts of the country this funding provides some dedicated resource at a time when council budgets otherwise might not stretch.”

The successful bid to the government’s Controlling Migration Fund was the culmination of much joint work between the council and partners – having been put together by a variety of agencies, across a number of sectors, and included voluntary organisations, faith groups, schools, community and sports groups.

Examples of multi-agency work which the cash boost will pay for include:

• Tackling rogue landlords who take advantage of vulnerable people and create issues within communities, such as overcrowding – building on ongoing work under the council’s selective licensing scheme. This will also include a boost for enforcement activity, to tackle things like fly-tipping
• Creating new partnership roles to help provide targeted family and youth support, and to join up services across agencies to provide tailor-made services in migrant communities – easing pressure on local services across the borough
• Creating more opportunities for local community groups to apply for small funding grants, to support projects which demonstrate and promote good community relations, bring people and neighbourhoods together, and help to build stronger communities across the borough
• Providing more support to help people improve their English language skills, to help them better integrate into the community

The multi-agency and multi-sector project bid was put forward by Rotherham Council, South Yorkshire Police, the local NHS, local schools and the local voluntary, faith and community sector (Rotherham United Community Sports Trust, Clifton Learning Partnership, Rotherham Ethnic Minority Alliance, Target Housing, Voluntary Action Rotherham and Premier Learning).

The funding will support the Building Stronger Communities strategy adopted by Cabinet on 15 May 2017.

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