Allenton Big Local was based in the small suburb in the city of Derby. In 2021, it had a population of 9,602 residents (ONS, 2022a) and a greater proportion of residents under the age of 19 than in Derby as a whole (ONS 2022b). 39 per cent of children (aged under 19) lived in relative low-income households (DWP, 2025).
The area was mostly made up of semi-detached housing and terraced properties, with 37 per cent of residents living in socially rented housing, compared to 19 per cent in Derby as a whole (ONS, 2023). Although largely residential, there was a busy central shopping area and Derby city centre was an eight-minute drive away. A few large companies, including Rolls Royce, were based in the area or nearby.
The Allenton Big Local partnership identified priorities early on through consulting with their community. They were strengthening the community; improving residents’ life skills; and creating opportunities for training and employment. Throughout the programme, the partnership hosted an annual general meeting, open to anyone who lived or worked in the area, to update the community on progress, determine membership of the partnership and consult with residents on future priorities for their Big Local plan.
From the outset, the partnership used a sub-group model for decision-making, which they felt enabled a better understanding of what was being delivered on the ground and allowed more residents to get involved in projects they were interested in. Each sub-group focused on a plan priority, with the wider partnership taking broader decisions around strategic direction and overall budgets. Another early decision taken by the partnership was to work with Local Trust to expand the Big Local area boundary to better reflect the community of Allenton, following feedback from residents and commissioned organisations.
From the beginning, the partnership’s key aim was to build a stronger community through improving residents’ aspirations, opportunities, and skills. Rather than directly delivering projects, the partnership prioritised building strategic relationships and allocating funds to local organisations to deliver activities and services in the community. The partnership also ran a community chest grants scheme, to support smaller groups and organisations in the community. They felt that delivering Big Local in this way enabled them to support organisations financially while offering important services to meet the needs of residents. This approach also meant that service providers were able to signpost residents to each other, and residents engaged in multiple Allenton Big Local projects.
A Big Local Plan set out what changes the partnership planned to make, how they planned to deliver on this and how funds were to be allocated. It was written for themselves, their community and Local Trust, as a guide and action plan.
A Big Local partnership was a group made up of at least eight people that guided the overall direction of delivery in a Big Local area.
To build trust and confidence in them and their work, the partnership focused on clarity and transparency when commissioning organisations and providing community grants. This included monitoring and evaluating providers and sharing reports and service-level agreements online for the community to access. However, the partnership felt it was challenging for national or regional providers to understand their holistic approach to Allenton Big Local projects and services, and sometimes had to take the difficult decision to taper funding or change providers where they felt values were not aligned.
As the Big Local programme came to an end, the partnership focused their funding on three main providers of family support, employability and skills development, and youth provision. They reflected that these core services, alongside popular Christmas events and regular activities at the newly renovated St Martin’s Community Centre, had created a legacy of a better supported, more skilled and more cohesive community.
After initial research into different options in the Allenton Big Local area, the partnership concluded they didn’t have the capacity or skillset to develop and manage a new community hub themselves. Instead, they identified an existing opportunity to work with others to develop the local St Martin’s Church into a community hub.
By contributing an initial £117,000, the partnership and church were able to leverage in a range of support from a local contractor and Derby Homes, who gifted the time of a project manager. The project, which had a commercial value of over £1m, took 18 months to complete, utilising over 10,000 volunteer hours as local stakeholders worked together to complete the extension to the main church building. This approach came with drawbacks, as the project had to fit in around other work the contractors and others had scheduled. The partnership felt this highlighted the importance of communication and community trust, as they had to ensure residents did not lose faith in the overall build.
The new addition – turning the building into St Martin’s Church and Community Centre — resulted in a popular café, garden, training rooms, main hall and other facilities. The multifunctional building and regular events in the café – known as the Chatterbox Café — became a focal point for community activity. Affordable rates for using the space enabled community groups to meet regularly, facilitating connections between services and activities. The partnership contributed to this by offering seed funding for new groups to start, that could meet in the café. This included a popular luncheon club and a mother and toddler group.
The partnership considered St Martin’s to be the most important part of their legacy, recognising that activities and services in the community were better connected because of the hub. They also felt that their approach to developing the space – working collaboratively and leveraging in the skills and resources of others — was an example of one of their biggest achievements and strengths as a partnership.
The early years of the programme saw the closure of organisations and venues used by young people in the Allenton area. For the Big Local partnership, this gap in provision was a key need they wanted to address. The partnership commissioned support through the Enthusiasm Trust — a youth organisation and the partnership’s Locally Trusted Organisation (LTO).
Alongside re-establishing a youth club in the area, Big Local funding enabled Enthusiasm Trust to develop a focused mentoring project which provided a safe space for young people, and opportunities to develop life skills. It allowed for mentoring over a period of 5 years, intended to span a young person’s entire secondary education, providing a consistent and supportive presence. Enthusiasm Trust shared that this was significant, as funding typically accessed could not cover a long-term mentoring programme of this kind.
Enthusiasm Trust reported that the mentoring project and youth club developed the confidence of young people, particularly during challenging times such as the Covid-19 pandemic. An additional grant from the Allenton Big Local partnership funded Project Lockdown which enabled young people to focus their energy on creative pursuits such as art, creative writing and dance as an outlet during periods of lockdown. Young people involved with Enthusiasm Trust also played a key role as volunteers for Allenton Big Local’s pandemic response, delivering food and activity parcels to other residents. Many older young people moved into voluntary or paid roles at Enthusiasm Trust, supporting younger residents and running activities.
Towards the end of the programme, Enthusiasm Trust had been able to access other sources of funding to continue the mentoring project. The partnership felt that this work had reduced anti-social behaviour in the community and helped to improve the personal relationships, confidence and aspirations of young residents.
A locally trusted organisation (LTO) was the organisation chosen by people in a Big Local area or the partnership to administer and account for funding, and/or deliver activities or services on behalf of a partnership. Areas might have worked with more than one locally trusted organisation depending on the plan and the skills and resources required.
The Allenton Big Local partnership recognised early in the Big Local programme that opportunities for family support and activities for toddlers and very young children were no longer available in their community. Seeing this as part of their work to improve skills in the community, they funded a national organisation – NACRO — to deliver a family support project.
The aim of the project was to increase the skills and confidence of parents and carers to care for their family, including managing behaviour, engaging with schools and professional services, and food and nutrition. The support around food was so popular it expanded into a healthy eating programme, with additional funding from Allenton Big Local partnership. This involved parents and carers learning basic cooking skills and being provided with ingredients to take home and cook for their family. This went on to become an informal support group, with the residents who initially attended the healthy eating programme setting up a group for parents that met regularly at St Martin’s.
The partnership reflected that while this family support project was impactful, with residents involved describing it as “life-changing”, it was challenging to manage. For example, the project was intended to focus on early intervention, however NACRO reported increasingly complex referrals over time (likely due to changing thresholds for intervention within local authority social care) that meant some residents had to be signposted elsewhere.
As the Big Local programme came to an end, the partnership streamlined their work to focus on the sustainability of local services and began to work more closely with the Family Support Worker employed by St Martin’s Church and Community Centre. Big Local funding was allocated towards hosting mother and toddler groups, family discos and activity sessions for children with additional needs. St Martin’s Church was then able to access further funding to continue this work following the end of the Big Local programme.
From the beginning of the Big Local programme, the Allenton Big Local partnership wanted to build skills and improve employment opportunities for residents. Their original ambition was to connect with some of the big employers based in or around the Big Local area. However, they found limited success, realising that there were larger economic factors that affected job opportunities available locally. The partnership brokered a few employment and voluntary opportunities with smaller businesses, but ultimately decided to invest in a project that could benefit a greater number of people.
Eventually, the partnership allocated funds to Derby Adult Learning Service to run a Work Club in the Allenton area. The aim was to provide a range of employability services to residents, including CV writing, job search support, access to IT equipment or accessing further training or education opportunities. The Work Club intentionally operated using a drop-in model, which the partnership felt worked well as it encouraged people to pop in even if they were not sure of what support they needed. The club aimed to be a safe and informal space, with refreshments available and background music played to foster a welcoming environment.
At the end of the Big Local programme, the partnership reported that over 300 people had been supported through the Work Club. Many had gone on to employment or further learning, with some coming back to volunteer at the club and support other residents towards employment.
A key priority of the Allenton Big Local partnership was community cohesion. They aimed to improve this through large community events, and a range of other smaller, regular activities. Their Christmas event was seen by the partnership as one of the main legacies of Allenton Big Local, with over 500 tickets distributed annually.
The partnership felt that key to delivering these events and activities was the input of resident volunteers. They reflected that their approach to delivering services and support led to residents finding out about what was happening in the community and offering to help out, or suggesting and leading new activities. In many cases, these residents had not volunteered before. Over time, they became more confident in their volunteering roles which meant that, as the Big Local programme came to a close, the Christmas event was fully led by local volunteers with minimal input from the Big Local partnership.
The Allenton Big Local partnership reflected that working with volunteers to lead on activities and events had been a learning curve. Many partnership members felt their professional backgrounds meant they were less familiar with how best to support volunteers as opposed to employees, and that they had learnt about the importance of patience and clear communication over time. Partnership members reflected that the range of activity they had funded over the years had created strong bonds between residents, and led to a more active and involved community.
Each Big Local area received approximately £1.2 million (ranging from £1.199 mil to 1.209 mil) to spend over 10–15 years, depending on how much additional funding they accessed from Local Trust to address specific needs. For example, to bring people together at the start of the programme or to access training and support. This has been categorised for areas and at the programme level based on reports received from areas.
Partnerships chose their own priorities and categories for reporting, and were encouraged to use broad categories so they could use the funding flexibly. All areas spent a significant amount of money on ‘Big Local delivery costs’ such as workers’ salaries, stationery and IT equipment. You can find out more about programme level spend in this article. This is how Allenton Big Local told Local Trust they used their Big Local funding.
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) (2025) ‘Children in low income families: local area statistics’. (Accessed 16 September 2025)
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) (2019) ‘English indices of deprivation 2019’. (Accessed 10 October 2024)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2022a) ‘UK Census 2021: All persons’. (Accessed 10 October 2024)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2022b) ‘UK Census 2021: Age structure of the population: Population aged under 19’. (Accessed 16 September 2025)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023) ‘UK Census 2021: Social rented housing’. (Accessed 16 September 2025)
