Neighbourhood Improvement Schemes

County Durham has many small villages and it is vital that these are not overlooked when regenerating larger towns and villages.

Because of the importance of these smaller places Durham County Council’s Cabinet approved a report on 16th October 2003, which details the criteria for small neighbourhood improvement schemes.

Each Member Area Panel is asked to select 2 schemes for inclusion in the programme, each year.

The money allocated for these schemes is £1 million in total from the County Council's Urban & Rural Renaissance Fund. This is to be matched by other funding from partner organisations.

GroundworkEast and West Durham will be managing the majority of these schemes, carrying out community consultation, designing the schemes and producing the detailed information for implementation. Their performance will be monitored and evaluated under the Service Level Agreement.

Some excellent schemes have been completed to date, and are detailed in the Urban & Rural Renaissance Initiative annual report.