Children and families set to benefit from eco-housing scheme’s popular community fund

Calls for new family activities are proving a lockdown favourite as residents of the Trent Basin housing development in Nottingham have been submitting spending suggestions for a fund designed to enhance community participation.

The Trent Basin Residents’ Association (TBRA) was established in 2018, after the first homes within the riverside development – two miles east of Nottingham city centre – became occupied.

Each year, a portion of the annual maintenance fees are given back to the residents so they can decide how best to improve their community. This year’s total fund is £3,000.

Previous spending rounds have gone towards planting schemes and communal greenspace maintenance. Last year, the fund purchased a gazebo for community gatherings as well as creating a mini-library for people to exchange books, located in one of the several storage areas.

This year, as lockdown forces parents to come up with more and more ideas to entertain and educate their children, the most popular suggestions so far have been geared very much towards family activities.

Ideas include painting surfaces to create games like hopscotch or an animal footprint trail, fairy doors near the storage areas  and family activity panels to boost outdoor fun.

Any other ideas are welcomed by the TBRA up until this year’s deadline at the end of March after which a new year begins and with it renewed funding available to residents.

Brian Wooding, chairman of both the Trent Basin Residents’ Association and the  Community Fund Panel, said: “There’s definitely been a strong theme to the suggestions we’ve received so far for this year’s fund allocation.

“Family activities and schemes that support outdoor play and exercise for children are always important, but this has become much more acute during the pandemic.”

He said that the residents’ fund had proved extremely popular with residents, and played a vital role in encouraging people to think beyond their own four walls into their wider community.

“We welcome all ideas, however big or small,” he said. “The beauty of it is that the residents get to decide which ideas they believe are most important.”

Each year, the TBRA accepts bids from residents, often via social media, and then formulates a spending plan from its most popular and feasible ideas.

Anything costing more than £1,000 goes back to the residents to jointly decide the outcome, while ideas costing less than £1,000 get voted on by the TBCF panel.

Trent Basin, a growing neighbourhood of low-energy houses and apartments, which stretches along Trent Lane to Colwick Park, is currently approaching the end of Phase 3 of its development after launching Phase 1 in 2016.

The sustainable scheme, developed by Blueprint Regeneration on the banks of the River Trent, will include a further 200 homes and a new school over the next few years.

Safe viewings around the properties at Trent Basin can be arranged through William H Brown on 0115 9819828, or by emailing [email protected]