Amersham has decided how to spend £10,000

More than 1,500 residents in the Amersham area have voted to decide who gets what in a six-way share of £10,000.

The money comes from Buckinghamshire County Council’s Amersham Local Area Forum (LAF) local priorities fund.

Following the recent ‘Amersham Decides’ poll, residents’ have voted for their top choices, awarding two local projects – Voices and Choices and Chiltern Youth Projects Mental Health Training – with £3,000 each.

Men in Sheds Amersham and the Pop-Up Cinema were both awarded £1,500 with a further £500 each for Chiltern Rangers and Amersham Museum’s Memory Boxes projects.

All the projects meet local priorities including reducing social isolation for older and vulnerable people and activities and support for young people aged over 11.

This County Council initiative encouraged residents to have a say in how local budgets are spent, with online voting or paper votes using the familiar black ballot boxes at a market day event, the leisure centre and library, local shops and pubs in the smaller parishes and community centres.

More than600 students from the Amersham School and year sixes at Elangeni and Woodside schools also took part, which gave many young people their first taste of democracy. Ballot forms were also distributed in other schools’ book bags.

Martin Phillips, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement and Public Health, who chairs the LAF, said: “We were delighted with the response to this initiative and the way in which the community engaged with us in deciding where to spend this money. It is fantastic that the public is able to choose where these funds are spent.”

Voting took place from late May to end July in the Amersham local area which includes Amersham town, Chenies, Chesham Bois, Coleshill and Penn parishes.

More information about Amersham Decides can be found at www.buckscc.gov.uk/amershamdecides