London Borough of Merton approved spending of almost £6.5m over the next three years on a raft of projects designed to improve the quality of infrastructure in the borough at a cabinet meeting on Monday.

The Civic Pride programme is made up of a range of projects which are cabinet priorities: including investing in further support for Mitcham Town Centre and its market place; match funding for multi-agency flood alleviation works in the borough, including in Raynes Park; and funding for big-screen sporting events.

The programme also provides top-up funding to a number of already approved Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) projects to account for increased construction and material costs.

This allows the CIL programme to progress including shopping parade improvements and seeking to improve the public realm in tandem with shopfront improvements.

The programme will be developed further, including creating additional staff resources to deliver. These officers will engage local members on schemes in their wards and scheme designs emerge.

The fund also provides three years of funding for ‘beautification’ (capital and revenue) which will be a fund for improving degraded street signs, benches, decluttering, planting, painting lamp columns – generally improving any scruffy looking parts of the streetscape.

Cllr Eleanor Stringer, Cabinet Member for Civic Pride, said: “It’s great we have been able to allocate these funds for projects that will have a massive impact on the public realm and infrastructure in the borough.

“And putting money back into our community by supporting the things that we know really matter to local people shows our commitment to our Civic Pride priority.”