Pictured: Falkirk Golf Club made their clubhouse and course more accessible for buggy users with a new ramp and paths around the course with help from Community Choices.
Dozens of local community groups and organisations have been helped to achieve new aspirations following nearly £3m of funding awarded by Falkirk Council over the past three years as part of its Community Choices initiative.
A report to the Council's Executive today (22 August) highlighted that since 2021, more than 120 grants have been awarded with a value of more than £2.8m.
The report goes on to say that an underspend of £400k from earlier in 2023 will be added to a previously agreed amount of £500k by Council bringing a final award fund of £900k available for the fourth and final phase beginning in October 2023.
Councillors agreed today to progress the additional funding with the next stage starting late October.
The awards were granted following public votes on where communities wanted to prioritise where a dedicated budget should be spent – more commonly known as participatory budgeting. Allocation of the funding to each Council ward was based on child poverty figures.
Councillor Cecil Meiklejohn, Leader of Falkirk Council said:
"Community Choices has been an enormous success with more than 120 organisations benefiting their local communities to date and more to follow soon. We are actively encouraging many more groups to come forward and tap into this source of funding that can help deliver their priorities. We can offer help and guidance in the application process and look forward to seeing groups coming forward soon."
To date, more than 55k eligible votes have been cast in the process.
The report also highlighted some examples where Community Choices has made a real difference to several groups who have now been able to deliver better offerings to their communities.
These include:
- Falkirk Golf Club who made their clubhouse and course more accessible for buggy users with a new ramp and paths around the course.
- Bo’ness Cars 4U where a free hospital transfer service was offered to cancer patients who would have difficulty in getting to appointments.