Sometimes you get really good news that you want to shout from the rooftops, brighten up people’s days with and spread the gospel of happiness, hope and have-a-go-itude that will inspire the people to get up, get down  and get on with it. And then sit back and wait to see how long it is for someone to start moaning about it.

The Labour Government’s ‘Pride in Place’ project is just that kind of dream bag of money left in the middle of a community for people to dig deep into and make real the ideas they’ve only dared to think about and then dismiss as ‘nah, that won’t happen’.

This is a £20million project over 10 years and the whole point of it is that it’s led by the community. That’s you, me, us and we. All together me and thee. That’s what we call a community.

And before this turns into a gangsta-rap lets just clamp down on the inevitable social media barrage of doom merchants. Because, you know what, something positive goes up on social media and a dozen miseries immediately knock it down.

Piles

But you see this time round it’s a bit different. We’ve had piles of money in town before, and people have seen what it’s been spent on and gone ‘what are they spending it on that for they should be spending it on this’. Why don’t they listen to me! If everyone in the world was ME…well, it’d be a pretty weird phone directory… .

This time that money starts in the community. That community decides it’s priorities. That community steers it to conclusion with the councils and government agencies there to help it happen. No one has any excuses this time. You need to get your ideas worked out and get on board the project and make it happen.

Pushing

I’ve spent most of this week with other local councillors pushing this. Tuesday I was filmed along the canal towpath talking about why we needed a good Chairperson to bring the community groups together, next minute I was wandering across the Meads being interviewed by a journalist about the kind of projects we could support, a couple of hours later I was with the Mayor and other councillors at the launch of the new multi games area on Mansfield Park as the sun shone brightly in support, next morning I was on the radio extolling the virtues of the project and Bridgwater and that evening at the YMCA meeting potential partners and being filmed by yet another journalist about whether or not it was all too good to be true.

It’s definitely not too true to be good. It’s really happening and of course there’s dangers. One is that as was the case with the Town Deal money the council in charge of it is still a bit too remote from the action. With the Town Deal it was Sedgemoor, which was then abolished mid project and the reigns handed to County-which is definitely too remote to be local. This time round it starts at County – so there’s a red flag – but Town Council, which is the closest to the people, are also crucially straight in there to anchor the project in the sub soil of Bridgwater. Where it needs to be. And now it needs to grow.

Watering

The project designation is ‘Bridgwater South’ That’s the county ward of myself and the Mayor Kathy Pearce. That’s basically Hamp and Westover, the ‘area around the Meads’. But it also means we’ve got on board Hamp town councillors Leigh Redman and Liz Leavy and fellow Westover councillor Tim Mander. Then we have to work with the MP and the County. But our boots are rooted firmly in our local community. And we’re watering them as we speak.

Talking of which.

SPEAK OUT!

NOW MAITLAND, NOWS YOUR TIME!! (that’s a line from ‘Waterloo’)