place based

Many local authorities are implementing new models of place-based working (person centred, bottom up approaches to meet the needs of people in their area) and in some cases elected members have become community facilitators in managing competing resident interests whilst ensuring inclusivity and accountability.

This article provides an overview of a Big Lottery funded initiative working with 150 communities investing £1 million in each over a ten year period. As Big Local communities move from planning to delivery, Local Trust is beginning to see the lessons emerging from the neighbourhoods being supported.

LGiU and  Local Trust have undertaken a year-long project to define and promote Community Collaboration and uncover the best examples of it in practice. They have been asking how councillors can actively support communities to lead their own projects by facilitating conversations, using their network and influence, and advocating within their local authority.

The Arches Local area, which sits within new civil society minister Tracey Crouch’s constituency in Chatham, is one of the examples highlighted in the report. With support from their local councillors, a group of local residents spearheading delivery of their Big Local plan won funding to support a pocket park project in a particularly deprived neighbourhood in their area.

When the group started working on planting new trees in the park, people came out of nearby houses to tell them not to bother, believing – on the basis of past experience – that the park would only be vandalised. Later, there was indeed a call to say that vandals had uprooted the trees and broken the new fence. But by the time assistance arrived, there was no problem to be seen.

The local community had already replanted the trees and mended the fence. When it came to the opening of the park, councillors helped by linking the project with local CCGs, the press and other groups, and what had been abandoned waste ground is now a well-used space.

Whilst a pocket park in Chatham is an initiative whose impact is largely local to its immediate neighbourhood, the Arches Local’s growing and maturing relationship with its local authority partners provide wider lessons. Collaborative relationships can help share responsibility more effectively between residents and local authorities and in the process deliver outcomes more effectively for both.