Volunteers will decide how £20m spent on Low Hill

Residents of a Wolverhampton estate are being asked to come forward to help decide on how £20m government funding will be spent on the area.

The funding to improve Low Hill has been secured from the government's Pride in Place programme, which allows local residents to shape the future of their neighbourhoods.

MP Sureena Brackenridge is asking for people who live or work on the estate, which recently celebrated its centenary, to volunteer to be board members.

Applications are also being taken for a board chair to help lead the investment in local services, activities and infrastructure over the next 10 years.

The Pride in Place programme is supported by £5bn worth of funding over the next decade, for 284 local communities across Britain.

The government said the scheme, which was announced in September, is expanded from its previous Plan for Neighbourhoods programme.

It said the new programme focuses on smaller geographies of around 10,000 people, targeting neighbourhood-level pockets of deprivation which "have too often fallen through the cracks of national interventions".

The investment will allow locals improve opportunities for residents, with the money set to be spent over the next decade.

Brackenridge called it a "once-in-a-generation" opportunity.

Encouraging people to express their interest for the scheme, she added: "Most importantly, it will not be civil servants who decide how this money is spent. It will be local people."

Interested parties have been asked to express their interest to City of Wolverhampton Council by the 16 March.

Applicants for chair of the board close tomorrow.

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