Planning: Finance
Communities and Local Government

Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham, Labour)

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much funding his Department allocated to community groups to support the development of neighbourhood and local plans in 2011-12; and how much such funding he estimates for 2012-13.

Greg Clark (Minister of State (Decentralisation), Communities and Local Government; Tunbridge Wells, Conservative)

The Department made available £3.2 million in 2011-12 as part of the Supporting Communities in Neighbourhood Planning programme to enable communities that wish to engage in planning at either the neighbourhood or local level, to access free advice and support. In addition, the neighbourhood planning front runners programme has to date allocated £2.52 million to local authorities to support neighbourhood planning working closely with local communities leading the work. A further round of bids for this funding is under consideration and the outcome will be announced shortly.

With the commencement of provisions in the Localism Act that enable the Secretary of State to support communities directly we are considering options for funding communities from 2012-13 and will make an announcement in due course.