Your Local Budget - join in the voting for your budget choices

From Tuesday 17 May residents across the Royal Borough will have the opportunity to say where they would like £300,000 of their council tax to be spent in the year ahead.

Following the success of the 2010 participatory budgeting exercise, in which some 3,000 people voted for projects that mattered to them, the Council's Your Local Budget consultation is now extending the spending choices in a move that reinforces its commitment to the Big Society - giving people more say and more control over what the Council does.

Cllr David Burbage, Council Leader, said: "This is a hands-on way for local people to tell us how money from their council tax should be spent. It's capital funding on top of the budget we have already allocated to services in every corner of the borough and, as last year's consultation proved, it has the potential to make a very real difference because residents tell us where their priorities lie and the Council takes action accordingly.

"We were delighted by the response to our first participatory budgeting (PB) consultation in 2010 and even more so by the borough-wide interest in the 2011 exercise. The outcome will be community improvements that people want and have brought about because they got involved and voted for their priorities."

Your Local Budget gives residents the chance to have their say on TWO lists of schemes:
• one offering £125,000 for priorities that would be of benefit across the borough and
• one offering £125,000 for schemes that would benefit people living in a particular area - Maidenhead, Windsor and Ascot/The Sunnings.

This is money from the council's capital budget which means it can be used for one-off projects that are important to local people, their families and communities and their quality of life. On the other hand, residents may think the Council should not spend the money at all - it's their council tax and their choice.

The priorities listed for people to rank in order of importance to them have been drawn up thanks to input from parish councils, borough councillors, chambers of commerce and local town partnerships.

Cllr Burbage said: "As representatives of residents and their respective members, they have set the Your Local Budget consultation agenda and now it is entirely up to residents themselves to tell us where the money should be spent - the essence of the Big Society."

Consultation forms will be distributed to local households over the next two weeks and residents have until Friday 17 June to take part. The form is also available online at www.rbwm.gov.uk (follow the picture link from the home page) or direct at www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/consultation_your_local_budget.htm

As well as being delivered to more than 61,000 homes, copies of the Your Local Budget leaflet are also available in Council offices at the Town Hall, Maidenhead, and York House, Windsor, at all libraries and council leisure centres and at First Stop Shops in Eton, Datchet, Sunninghill and Sunningdale. They should be returned to: Budget Consultation, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, Town Hall, St Ives Road, Maidenhead SL6 1RF by Friday 17 June 2011.

Residents may also take part online at www.rbwm.gov.uk (link from home page).

In a separate online consultation to be launched in June, the final £50,000 of the PB budget allocation will be devoted to a neighbourhood-level consultation. Residents will have the chance to vote for very local schemes put forward by parish councils, voluntary and community groups and individual people if they have a good idea that could benefit their street or community.

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