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A Year in the Life of the Big Society Vanguards

19 July 2011

Below are official extracts summarising the Big Society activity in the three vanguard areas which were launched one year ago today in Liverpool:

• Eden, Cumbria (housing, planning, broadband, renewable energy, transport)
• Windsor, Kent  (anti-litter, volunteering including a Care Bank Scheme, participatory budgeting, parish "menu") 
• Sutton, London (sustainable developement, transport, skills through Citizen's University, engaging young people)

 

Eden Valley

The Eden valley vanguard is led by Rory Stewart MP and the communities of Upper Eden, Heart of Eden and Lyvennet. The three communities, which cover around 50 parishes, identified as their main priorities: 

• affordable housing
• neighbourhood planning
• superfast broadband
• renewable energy
• transport

New affordable housing: Work starting this week on the building of affordable homes in Crosby Ravensworth. David Graham, a resident and his colleagues at the Lyvennet Community Trust wanted affordable housing proportionate to the community's needs and wishes. The residents effectively set up their own housing association, and with the support of the Department for Communities and Local Government, Homes and Communities Agency and Eden District Council have successfully busted bureaucratic barriers that were stopping them from making progress. As a result Homes and Communities Agency is developing a more tailored and supportive approach to small Community Land Trusts and the Community Right to Build will make it easier for other similar projects to navigate planning permission.

Saved the pub: The residents of Crosby Ravensworth have set up a co-operative - Lyvennet Community Pub Ltd - to save their ‘local’ after almost 90 per cent of residents endorsed the idea. They want to buy, refurbish and reopen the Butcher’s Arms as a traditional Cumbrian pub selling local ales and providing a venue for local sports and pastimes, events and celebrations. They also have plans to set up a not-for-profit shop from the premises for selling local produce. The villagers needed £255,000 to buy the pub, but they raised £290,000 which is helping towards refurbishment as well.

Superfast broadband: Parishes across the Eden Valley are to be amongst the first rural communities in England to benefit from superfast broadband thanks to work led by local residents in partnership with Broadband UK, Department for Communities and Local Government and Cumbria County Council. Work is due to start this summer on the three 'community hub' pilots that combine the enthusiasm and ideas of local people with the commitment from commercial operators and financial and technical support from Government to deliver superfast broadband speeds to some of the most remote corners of England. Broadband Delivery UK and Department for Communities and Local Government are using the Eden lessons learnt to develop a community toolkit that will provide a model approach for other rural communities.

Parishes in Upper Eden have now started work on the development of a neighbourhood plan for their communities to set out how they see their parishes growing over the next five years. Alongside the other Neighbourhood Planning frontrunners, Upper Eden residents have a Department for Communities and Local Government planner to offer guidance and an assurance that the lessons from their project will inform the Localism Bill as it goes through Parliament.

 

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead

Ten projects are up and running, or in full development, under the Big Society vanguard banner in Windsor & Maidenhead. Some successes include:

Adopt-a-Street: Royal Borough residents, shops, businesses, clubs, organisations and schools can now take to the streets to spread the anti-litter message. Adopt-a-Street encourages residents to volunteer to care for their communities and local environment through collecting litter from their local streets and areas. This is an additional service to complement and enhance the council's regular street cleaning schedule. Current levels of participation include 74 individual schemes (with one or more volunteer), 11 local schools, a Neighbourhood Watch group, four other community groups and two businesses.

Care bank scheme: The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead is about to announce the name of the consortium that will run a CareBank scheme, a time credit based service that will encourage residents to volunteer or provide mutual support for those with unmet support needs.

The Guildhall Museum in Windsor, is being run with input from over 60 volunteers. They have contributed 662 hours since the museum was opened in March during which time there have been over 10,000 visitors.

Participatory Budgeting: Following the recommendations of the Participatory Budgeting Sub Committee in March, officers are preparing the elements of the council’s 2011 participatory budgeting scheme including: a borough wide scheme (that mirrors the one run in 2010), an area based scheme (which divides the borough into three areas of Maidenhead, Windsor and Eton, and Sunningdale and Ascot), and a neighbourhood scheme (where community groups and parishes are able to bid for small groups of money local projects). The schemes were launched in May 2011.

Parish Menu: A parish menu has been approved and circulated to all Parishes. Individual Parishes were contacted prior to distribution to ensure awareness and understanding. Initial responses have been received and forwarded to the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead officer responsible for the service.

 

The London Borough of Sutton
 

There are three key projects which Sutton have identified: on Smarter Travel, creating a more sustainable suburb in Hackbridge and on youth engagement.

Creating a sustainable suburb in Hackbridge: Sutton has been at the forefront of environmental innovation and encouraged environmentally friendlier living, green personal transport and opening up access to locally produced food run by volunteers. An encapsulation of this is at Hackbridge, where with residents the council is designing a sustainable urban village. As well as having a number of community led projects, Hackbridge has generated energy company interest in investing in a decentralised energy network together with successfully collaborating with private developers to host energy centres.

Smarter Travel Sutton: Smarter Travel Sutton showed that local travel planning can lead to a big reduction in car use. Sutton is now working on community driven Integrated Transport Packages, with the first site being established in Wallington. Sutton worked with the Department for Transport in delivering their traffic signs policy review, which is now reducing street clutter; removing of some of the regulations and procedures which hinder the implementation of traffic schemes supported by the local community; and giving residents a stronger voice in the development and implementation of transport schemes. Sutton's experience in delivering successful smarter travel schemes has been shared with a number of local authorities including Southampton, Portsmouth and Hampshire in relation to their joint Local Sustainable Transport Fund bid.

Citizen's University: Building local community’s capacity and changing attitudes: Sutton has worked in partnership with the Young Foundation to establish a Citizen’s University scheme ‘The U’ to help people develop skills and confidence to enable them to play a more active role in their community.

Promoting young people’s participation: Following a successful Question Time style event in March for young people to inform and promote Sutton’s young people’s Vanguard activity, local young people accessing the Community Voices project at the Sutton Life Centre are producing a short film to be shown in Sutton’s schools highlighting how young people can support the Big Society and become involved in the Sutton Youth Parliament, prior to elections for the Youth Parliament in November.

Tips from citizens who have been involved in community initiatives in Sutton:

• Efficient and effective services are more likely through partnership and inviting all to join in partnership can only be a good thing
• Be more outward looking
• Recognise you do not all have the solutions
• Harness the enthusiasm of your residents and local community organisations

Further tips and full report: One Year On

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