Community engagement
The success of RENEW North Staffordshire’s housing market renewal (HMR) programme has been built on its engagement with local communities and how residents have been involved in the developments that have taken place, as well as its communications with businesses, developers and contractors. A number of surveys support this assertion. For example, the effectiveness of various events that have taken place as part of RENEW’s Area Regeneration Framework (ARF) studies and masterplanning exercises - such as mobile open days, drop-in surgeries, fun days and newsletters - was independently assessed in 2008, resulting in an 85% positive response.
Consultation events
Through its partners, RENEW delivers a great deal of the ongoing consultation work. In the lead-up to any RENEW activity, an intense period of consultation is organised by partners in the focus area, including a six-month door-knocking exercise, meetings with community and faith organisations, fun days, events where residents can provide their views via flags on maps, and attendance at informal gathering. An exit poll is taken at all events organised by RENEW, to evidence what attendees got out of the event and their satisfaction levels.
RENEW approach its work with cultural sensitivity and pays particular attention to groups that are often not heard. For example, a fun day organised to consult with the local Polish community was organised and has now grown into an annual festival run by the community itself.
The Audit Commission has highlighted as good practice RENEW’s development of a three-dimensional ‘flythrough’ planning tool, which incorporated a costing model, and related aspects. This was used in producing and implementing the Wellington Street Neighbourhood Plan, which is part of the City Centre South Area of Major Intervention (AMI). It also allows an interactive street-level ‘flythrough’ that encourages good community engagement.
There are monthly verbal or written councillor briefings, tailored to the needs of individual members.
Community Steering Groups
A first priority for RENEW North Staffordshire was the establishment of Community Steering Groups (CSGs), which have been particularly successful. There are five CSGs in the RENEW pathfinder programme area, and membership is open to everyone in each area covered.
The role of these groups is precisely defined: ‘to act as custodians of the community engagement process’. They ensure that local people are at the centre of masterplanning processes, commenting and making suggestions for changes in the proposed consultation process, and contributing to the selection of the lead developer. Importantly, they did not comment on the masterplan itself, but on the consultation and engagement process around the masterplan, acting as an interface between the community and the RENEW team.
The CSGs were also involved in the selection process for appointing lead developers following training over a six-week period, which has been invaluable according to officers interviewed.
Each steering group has set up a communication sub-group to develop communication plans for their neighbourhood. The idea is to plan change and ensure that all voices are heard, for example by issuing a newsletter to the local community.
CSGs have been successful as sounding boards and by involving local residents in the regeneration process, and have been of great assistance in the delivery of RENEW’s regeneration programme.
Residents’ Friends
Another important project that is operating across the RENEW area is delivered by the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), which was commissioned to provide an initiative known as the Residents’ Friend service. This has been highlighted by the Audit Commission as an example of good practice. Experienced CAB advisers are attached to each area affected by the HMR pathfinder, to provide support to residents. They provide one-to-one advice on all aspects of the housing market renewal programme, advising people the options available to them, such as compulsory purchase, compensation rights, and the benefits available. They refer people to other services, such as the general advice available at the CAB in the city centre. The team of five also attends open days and consultation events, supporting partners by providing on-the-spot advice.
In engaging with residents on a day-to-day basis, they are able to pick up important issues and concerns and feed them back to RENEW staff and to the local Community Steering Group, of which they are a member.
Issues that have changed as a result of the actions of the Residents’ Friends include:
- It was pointed out that landlords get a higher valuation if their property is empty when selling to the council, so they were evicting tenants prior to clearances. Their tenants therefore missed out on statutory compensation. RENEW responded by awarding grants to such tenants, even though they were not obliged to do so
- The Residents’ Friends team helped elderly vulnerable people, who didn’t want to be moved, to write letters to RENEW about the proposed demolition of a particular street. As a result that street was taken out of the clearance programme
- Owner occupiers said that RENEW was not doing anything for them on a specific development led by an RSL. The team suggested that they were added into the alley gating scheme and the RSL agreed to this
Arts initiatives
RENEW has invested in an innovative arts project called ‘Place, Space and Identity’ (PS&I) to bolster community spirit and pride. The programme, which has been running for two years, is described as ‘a programme of temporary arts projects providing opportunities for artists and the general public to respond to the social, economic and environmental changes taking place in North Staffs'. The project aims to give people ‘the chance to reflect on the upheaval they are experiencing’ and ‘seeks to capture what might be lost and forgotten and faces their fears and ambitions for the future’.
This scheme provides a real opportunity to use arts and culture:
- as a vehicle of community engagement
- to deepen the influence of local people on their environment, creating a greater sense of belonging
- to provide a richer understanding to professionals of what people feel about the place they live in and how it could be changed for the better without destroying their sense of place
Another initiative, Dreamscheme has encouraged similar community development as PS&I with young people. This programme involves a points scheme which, when collected by the young people who participate, help to ‘pay’ for trips and sporting activities.
