Miles Platting Decided

On Saturday 12th November residents in Miles Platting were given the chance to take a lead in improving their own neighbourhood thanks to Miles Platting: You Decide, a new project from Adactus Housing Association.

PB in Miles Platting

Residents were encouraged to develop their own ideas for improving their community and applied for up to £1,000 for their projects. 16 applications were received and project themes ranged from hairdressing, dance, cookery, football, and new media.

The voting and decision day took place at St. Georges Community Centre on Saturday 12th November where over 100 young and old residents came to listen to the presentations and vote on their favourite five projects.

The event was full of fun and it gave local residents the opportunity to find out about a range of projects and services that were going on within the neighbourhood.

Resident, Edith Hesketh commented "I really enjoyed today, I have learnt a lot about groups in the area. Lets have more!"

Elsie Sheridan, another resident commented "absolutely great, a very fair process".

After votes were cast and counted it was announced that there were five winners. They were Miles Platting Swimming Pool who plan to open the pool and gym for free during the Spring half term next year, Little Ancoats Juniors football club, Butler Court residents committee who will set up a regular film club, St George's Community Centre who are setting up a cookery skills project for young people and YPAC who want to develop a garden to grow vegetables on Ridgway Street.

£5,000 was allocated to the overall funding pot and will be shared between the successful projects. The whole project concept proved a huge success and Adactus Housing hope to make this an annual event, with greater pots of money available each year.

Neighbourhood Development Officer Vicki Greer said:

"We were delighted with the number of applications that we received. There were some fantastic project ideas and many of them are from residents who haven't contacted us before now. We aim to support the other projects who didn't receive funding by helping them with other external sources of funding"

Suzanne Bullock, Regional Manager at Adactus Housing believes that Miles Platting: You Decide can make a real difference to how residents feel about their community:

"This scheme is a fantastic way to widen community involvement and build the capacity for residents to deliver what they want in their own neighbourhoods. The concept is about far more than a pot of cash - it's about developing new ways for local people to bring about improvements to their own neighbourhoods"