“For the past 5 years, Newport City Council, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board and our partners have been using an approach called participatory budgeting to support a range of community projects, whilst encouraging local people to get involved in decision making.

Participatory budgeting, also known as PB, is where a sum of money is made available to fund activities to support an important public theme.  We encourage local voluntary groups to come up with ideas for projects they want to run that they think will benefit their communities and contribute to the programme theme.

These ideas are presented to the public in an event where people vote to decide who gets the funding they’re asking for.  

Since 2019, our PB programmes have allocated over £800,000, have supported more than 160 projects and have had over 600 people take part in our voting events.  This is the biggest investment of its type in Wales and one of the biggest in the UK.”

This event for PB focused on helping women, children and young people’s emotional well being and tackling loneliness and isolation. 

A sum of £130,000 was made available through the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund amd supported by the Neighbourhood Care Networks in Newport.  The event was two days and over 200 people came to the Dolman Theatre to take part in voting.  Groups were able to bid for up to £5,000 for each project and 26 groups presented 36 projects to the voters.  

People who took part gave us really encouraging feedback …

“Good to hear and netowrk with groups, see the faces, new and familiar.  All worthy causes“

“Amazing experience, finding peace today.“

“I didn’t realise there were so many worthwhile causes in the community.“

“Alongside the council and the health board, Gwent Association of Voluntary Organisations (GAVO), Newport 50+ Forum and Newport Youth Council, have worked together to plan and run our PB work.

We think our PB work shows what can be achieved when people come together to make the most of their resources, creativity and positive energy.  This is what we call ‘social capital’ and we plan to continue working in this way to make Newport an ambitious, fairer and greener city for everyone.”

Huw Williams, Senior Policy and Partnership Officer, Newport City Council