National Association for Neighbourhood Management

The official website for National Association for Neighbourhood Management

  • Old news
    • Featured articles
    • Neighbourhood News
    • Event news
  • Events
  • Learning & Practice
    • Guide to Neighbourhood Agreements
    • Links directory
    • NANM newsletters
  • Projects
    • Big Local
    • Media4ME
  • More about NANM
    • Contact us
    • Subscribe to the NANM newswire
You are here: Home / Archives for Big Local

Big Local – evaluation of the early years published

February 26, 2015 by Paul Leave a Comment

In April last year Local Trust brought in the first team of independent evaluators to assess how well things are going across the Big Local programme – to look at areas’ progress, whether Big Local is starting to make a difference, and what kinds of things have helped and hindered areas in their Big Local journeys. At heart the big question was – is Big Local working?

Find out more about the research, undertaken by NCVO in partnership with the Institute for Volunteering Research and the Office for Public Management, and read a summary of their findings here. On the same page you can also download the full report, as well as a shorter summary. [Source:  Local Trust, February 2015]

Share this:

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • More
  • Pocket
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Filed Under: Big Local, Neighbourhood News Tagged With: Big Local, community development, evaluation, research

Local devolution is not big devolution in miniature

February 25, 2015 by ben Leave a Comment

Dolls in the Rain by byjoelodge on FlickrWe would argue it’s more human, more interesting, and more radical by far.

We have heard the word “Devolution” everywhere over the past six months;  from Scotland’s referendum, to new financial and political powers for Manchester, Leeds and  Sheffield.  We have also heard increasingly about groups of local activists seizing the initiative in their own communities – to re-open a local pub, to save libraries, or to win contracts to deliver services previously run by local authorities.

The temptation is to see these developments as similar responses at different scales to the same issues; scepticism of Whitehall and Westminster politics, disillusionment with ‘big’ power and big projects, and a widespread sense of traditional power seeming distant and disconnected from daily human local lives.

One reading of all this is that the big devolutionary tilt – in Scotland, and in the English city regions – now just needs to be replicated or given another shove, on a smaller scale and we’ll have achieved ‘more power to local communities’?

We are not so sure.  When we meet with others involved in neighbourhood and community projects we often hear them describe their Town Hall or County Halls as feeling just as distant as Whitehall.  For many people it seems that shifting power from Westminster to their own city council or local authority doesn’t lead to them feeling decisions are being taken closer to them, or that they have more control.  It’s just one group of decision-makers ‘somewhere else’ being replaced by another.  The headline priorities of newly empowered cities reinforce this: grand transport schemes and other infrastructure projects; steel and glass, rather than people and communities.  The human element is often reduced to workforce statistics – reinforcing our concern that future ‘devolved’ decisions of re-invigorated cities will feel no more focused on local communities than Whitehall’s decisions today (see high speed rail, housing, and healthcare).

And if you study what the more ambitious local authorities are saying about getting closer to communities and neighbourhoods is it really about surrendering decision-making power and budgets to communities?  In some cases it is – but more often the stated goals are about building cleverer administrative systems for tailoring services and pre-empting needs.  This is smart, necessary and important if public services are to meet spiralling demand, but it is not the same as devolving power, money, and decisions to villages, estates and neighbourhoods.

Yet, almost in a parallel world across the country there is a renewed energy and enthusiasm going into community-led activities to improve or create something right where people live.  We have seen this in the take-up (slow but steadily growing) of ‘community rights’ to create local plans, take over community buildings, or to bid for contracts to run local services.  We have also see it in the amazing energy which has been collected and released by the Big Local programme where £1million has been offered as a catalyst for change in 150 communities.  And then there are myriad examples of new organisations trying to meet pressing needs in their communities in new and imaginative ways, often using technology to turn labour-intensive tasks (like matching users to support, or distributing information) into very simple tasks.

This small and local devolution is not some kind of replica in miniature of city-regional devolution, in many cases it feels like a challenge to the culture and structure of city-regional government.  So while the newly empowered cities may quickly start looking like scaled-down versions of Whiltehall, local devolution looks very different; you could even say, the polar opposite.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • More
  • Pocket
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Big Local, community rights, devolution, local government, Localism

Big Local support for traders to set up action group

February 2, 2015 by Paul Leave a Comment

Business people, shopkeepers, hoteliers and independent traders in Eastbourne’s Devonshire West are getting together to form a new group to tackle issues that affect their area.

Brian Lawrence, one of the people behind the Traders Action Group, said “We know our area has its own set of problems that don’t always get noticed in discussions about the whole of Eastbourne, and we want to make sure our voice is heard”.

Set up of the group is being  supported by Devonshire West Big Local.

Read more: Eastbourne Herald, 24 January 2015

Share this:

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • More
  • Pocket
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Filed Under: Neighbourhood News Tagged With: advocacy, Big Local, business links, local groups, neighbourhood

Big Local gives communities spending power

January 19, 2015 by Paul Leave a Comment

Although Big Local is still in its early stages, with the majority of the £1m in each of the 150 Big Local areas yet to be spent, already there are examples of how it is helping new cooperatives and social enterprises spring up around the UK and resident decision-makers gain confidence in public speaking, accounting and community consultation. Read more in Positive News, 4 November 2014

Share this:

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • More
  • Pocket
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Filed Under: Neighbourhood News Tagged With: Big Local, Big Lottery, community-led, funding

Private renting: What’s the problem?

May 23, 2014 by Paul Leave a Comment

DSC_0022-SmallThis post was originally written to share some of the lessons learned during a study visit by residents of Big Local areas to Leigh West to explore local strategies to improve housing. We are publishing it here partly because we think it might be of wider interest, but also because it is quite long. A shorter version will be published on the Local Trust web site. The study visit was organised by NANM as part of our support for networking and learning between Big Local areas. You can find out more about Big Local by visiting the Local Trust web site.

On the 24 and 25 February 2014, 13 people from six Big Local areas travelled to Leigh West to take part in the Improving housing – Big Local study visit. It was a fascinating visit during which we were shown around the local area by residents of Leigh West Big Local (Leigh Neighbours), heard from Wigan Housing Solutions, a local social enterprise lettings agency working in the area, as well as from Lancashire Community Finance about their approach to low cost home improvement finance, and North Huyton Communities Future about how they are using national Empty Homes funding to renovate empty homes to rent to families in need. We were also taken through the process of developing a neighbourhood plan by Urban Vision, an architecture and built environment centre, and heard from an architect at the URBED cooperative about a couple of community-led housing projects in Liverpool. You can see slides from most of the presentations on the NANM SlideShare site, along with some photos and video on the Local Trust Flickr and YouTube channels.

But what was really noticeable was how all of the areas present identified problems in the private rented sector as a barrier to improving housing in their communities. It is this common experience that I want to focus on in this blog post.


[Read more…]

Share this:

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • More
  • Pocket
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Filed Under: Big Local, Event, Featured, Housing Tagged With: Big Local, housing, Local Trust, private renting

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

About NANM

NANM is an independent not-for-profit organisation. We promote neighbourhood management and neighbourhood action through our membership and to wider audiences. Find out more about NANM here

Contact NANM

  • Email
  • Twitter

Stay in touch

Subscribe to our emails about news and events

Search the site

Recent Comments

  • admin on Read our new research into neighbourhood and locality working
  • Pete Davies on Read our new research into neighbourhood and locality working

Featured page

About NANM

Featured page

Events

Featured page

Links directory

Copyright © 2022 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.