Proceeds of crime money heading for South Oxfordshire

News from Soha Housing

27 November 2009

Soha Housing has been successful in its bid to the Local Criminal Justice Board’s Community Cashback Scheme to secure funding for community gardens in several of their estates. The award came from a total pot of £95,000 being distributed across the whole of the Thames Valley and will ensure that residents will be able to make better use of communal spaces as part of a ‘safer, cleaner, greener’ approach in their area.

Community Cashback is a new scheme to give local people a say in how criminal assets recovered through the Proceeds of Crime Act should be spent in their communities. The criteria were that projects should be community focussed and relate to improving the lives of local people through the reduction of nuisance and anti-social behaviour.

Soha Housing secured the money as part of its Safer, Cleaner, Greener approach to its estates, enabling residents to develop 3 community gardens.

Bidding took place in August and the public were invited to have their say on which projects they favoured.  Soha’s estates - with Didcot's Great Western Drive leading the way - was one of 25 projects competing for funding across the Thames Valley.

Maureen Adams Director of Customer Services and Operations for Soha said: “We’re delighted to have been successful in winning this funding. It will make a real difference to our residents who want to have ownership of their own community spaces. Our experience to date is that children and parents in particular enjoy the opportunity to be involved in planting, and looking after the environment with young people helping to design and develop the project.  A small children’s community garden recently established on a Soha estate in Didcot has been enthusiastically taken up by residents and the young people on the steering group are keen to develop a new garden. They want to grow vegetables and share their expertise to help other estates to use the green space which this funding will create in the same way. It’s wonderful to see a grant used in such a way that it builds the confidence of young people who have such a lot to offer.’’

Mike Curry, Manager of the Local Criminal Justice Board said: “This was a well thought out and imaginative bid from Soha Housing for an extremely worthwhile project. We are delighted to award this money to Soha Housing and confident that this will be an excellent use of the money. It proves that preventative approaches to nuisance and damage can be very effective, giving local people the opportunity to take pride in their neighbourhoods.”

Notes to Editors

(1) Soha Housing manages 5,200 properties across South Oxon and beyond, providing homes for around 12,000 people.

(2) The Audit Commission Inspection of Soha Housing in October 2009 (published Nov 19 09) places Soha as the only housing association in the country to have achieved the highest possible rating for Resident Involvement and the same for Value for Money.

(4) For more information on Soha projects please contact in the first instance Liz Roberts in Soha Housing’s Resident Involvement and Marketing Department on lizroberts@soha.co.uk or 01235 515 900.  For more information on the Local Criminal Justice Board contact Fiona Thomas, Communications Manager, LCJB, on fiona.thomas@thamesvalley.pnn.police.uk or 01869 343894.