£100,000 Your Way: Update

Earlier this year, Westminster Council made available £100,000 for every local ward in the city to spend on their priorities and interests. We wanted to update you on the progress we have made to date.

Over the Summer, we spent three months consulting with every resident in our ward to find our your priorities. We asked you to vote on six priorities - (i) Improving Safety, (ii) Greening our area, (iii) Improving Recycling, (iv) Improving Elgin Parade, (v) Helping the Community or (vi) Something Else. We also asked for your specific ideas about what to do within these themes.

Over 250 local residents gave us their views and, when we calculated your votes, it was clear that you wanted some of the budget spent on all five of the themes. So, over the last few months we've working through all the options:

• Improving Safety: After liaising with the police and our colleagues in Little Venice ward, we are trying to secure a mobile police station which will be dedicated to Maida Vale and Little Venice. The police are interested in the proposal and have been able to find an existing van which we may be able to buy. We are currently working through all the (many) issues and questions which need to be resolved on this quite complicated issue. We'll come back when we have further news.
• Greening Our Area: Council officers have told us that the best way to support bio-diversity and the environment is to either plant trees or hang flower baskets at regular intervals. We've spoken with our Tree team at the Council and they already have an existing budget to plant trees in roads where the roots can take hold - so we'll look at that separately. On the baskets, we've identified a number of key roads which will benefit from next Spring.
• Improving Recycling: We have two options here - firstly, to employ a council officer to identify which roads in the ward could recycling more and then work with local residents to find block-by-block solutions. Alternatively, we could introduce an additional collection for all Maida Vale residents - which might be quite expensive. We are currently working through the costs of both and will report once we have completed this.
• Improving Elgin Parade - this is likely to be the longest project to come to fruition and we have a lot of negotiations to complete. We begun meeting with officers to work out the best way forward.
• Helping the community - last Monday at Area Forum we asked for views from neighbours and residents on precisely how some of the budget can help our community. We have some initial ideas - but we'd like to hear from you on this. Get in touch with your ideas - maidavale@maidavaleconservatives.com.

We'll let you know as soon as we have further news on each of these.

Lee