Dragons’ Den-style project hands control of £2.25m to Brent council residents

People vote for local projects to improve infrastructure and health and wellbeing in five localities

As local councils in England continue to feel the sting of over a decade of budget-slashing austerity policies, Brent council has launched an initiative to give residents the power to decide how they spend 2.25m of funding for local projects.

The participatory budgeting process was first pioneered in Porto Alegre in Brazil. It has been trialled in Tower Hamlets, but is a first for Brent council which trialled a much smaller version of the initiative in January, with a funding pot of 500,000.