Throughout 2019, Walton CLP ran a Participatory Budgeting project for Walton CLP members. The CLP’s Executive Committee allocated £1000 to this and invited the CLP membership to decide how it is spent.
From more than 50 ideas that were proposed by the membership online and at a lively CLP meeting in January 2019, the Radical Finance Committee* met and created a shortlist that was then voted on by the membership at the CLP AGM.
The votes were counted using a system of transferable voting, and the two most popular options were a Projector to be used for CLP meetings and guerilla art interventions on the street, and a Community Gardening project that CLP members started working on in 2020.
The ideas that were shortlisted are below:
| £500 | Projector | Show films / save paper in meetings by projecting documents. Project political messages in outside spaces. |
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| £350 | Fuel / lunch / minibus | Visit the Centre for Alternative Technology. |
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| £500 | Artist fee / materials | An open call for artists to suggest projects. |
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| £300 | Bus Signage | Magnetic CLP signage to stick on minbuses that we borrow / hire from elsewhere |
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| £500 | Community Gardening |
“Walton in Bloom” – Turn some of our green spots into community gardens and grow fruit & veg. Plant wildflowers on green space and beside roads. Flower arrangements in strategic locations. |
Notes
When inviting suggestions, people were encouraged to think as broadly as possible and propose activity that fitted into any of the main activities of the CLP – Campaigning, Community Engagement and Developing the Membership. The longlist of viable ideas, as well as those that the Radical Finance Committee decided were not viable can be viewed here.
For more information, see the previous blog post on Participatory Budgeting.
*The Radical Finance Committee is an informal group, that meets as required and is open to all within the CLP