Big Local DY10 was named after the area’s postal code and based in Kidderminster, an historic market town located 20 miles southwest of Birmingham and 12 miles north of Worcester. The area included three distinct neighbourhoods: Horsefair, Broadwaters, and Greenhill.
The Big Local area was among the top 20 per cent of the most deprived regions in England (MHCLG, 2019). With a population of 7,863, there was a 12 per cent increase between 2011 and 2021 (ONS, 2012; 2022).
The area had more young people and people from an Asian or Asian British background than the local authority’s average (ONS, 2023a; 2023b). Local assets included parks, a nature reserve, and the River Stour, as well as shops, primary schools, nurseries, religious establishments, and numerous community and volunteer groups. The area was served by a network of local buses as well as Kidderminster train station, with two primary roads running through DY10, with one separating the neighbourhoods of Greenhill and Horsefair.
The Horsefair, Broadwaters and Greenhill partnership — known locally as Big Local DY10 HBG, after the area’s post code — aimed to create “clean and safe neighbourhoods” capable of fostering increased interaction, confidence, aspiration and resilience. They consulted extensively with residents and partners to identify local needs and inform their priorities, which for most of the programme included the environment, health and wellbeing, community participation and youth engagement.
Throughout, the partnership focused on building people’s skills and capacity, to strengthen community resilience and ensure projects could be sustained after the end of the Big Local programme. They did this through distributing small grants, helping to set up and support community groups to deliver activity, and by creating opportunities for volunteering and skills development. By 2023, they had distributed over £114,000 through small grants to organisations, groups and individuals, which they felt had stimulated new ideas and opportunities for collaboration, and enabled them to respond to the needs of each neighbourhood.
The partnership saw their approach as pragmatic — drawing on the skills, resources and experiences available within the community. As opposed to delivering projects themselves, they allocated funding to organisations and established new networks and forums for stakeholders to collaborate and coordinate activity.
They also invested in paid workers and organisations to build their own capacity as a group, allowing them to focus on the bigger picture in their work. Paid workers provided support in engaging people, managing projects and supporting individuals and groups to deliver.
As a group, the partnership remained largely consistent and close throughout the Big Local programme. From the beginning, the group intentionally excluded councillors from the partnership to ensure their work was led by residents with less historic opportunity to be heard, although they found it challenging to attract a diverse representation from the whole community. Over the years, members developed their skills, experience, and confidence; some moved on to elected council positions.
Following consultation with the community and local organisations, the partnership created a Covid-19 recovery plan, which identified financial resilience, employment, and health and wellbeing as key focus areas for the community long term. This informed the final few years of Big Local delivery in the area.
As the programme came to an end, the partnership explored continuing to support the community through setting up a new organisation, but ultimately decided against this. They felt their legacy lay in the way that community capacity had been strengthened through the Big Local programme, with new groups, projects and resident volunteers continuing to deliver locally.
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.
Big Local DY10 worked with local people and traders to improve areas within the community. In doing so, they developed resident capacity, established strong local groups, and fostered leadership in the community.
Early on, the partnership focused on the shopping centre and surrounding streets of the historic Horsefair area, which residents felt were in need of improvement. They brought together local people and traders from the area to form a new group, ‘Horsefair and Proud.’ Partnership members and their worker helped to facilitate the group’s activity, identifying local stakeholders, providing support and small amounts of funding. The group made tangible improvements to the area through litter picks, clearing fly tipping, planting bulbs, painting shops and installing a wall mural.
Horsefair and Proud became an independent community group, and as it strengthened its capacity, became less reliant on Big Local funding and support. By the end of the Big Local programme, the group had fostered community engagement through Facebook, gathering over 2,000 members, and was self-sufficient enough to continue its work. The group attracted funding, organised events and activities, and collaborated with groups and organisations to further improve Horsefair. They successfully advocated for the restoration of a local clock, worked with the Kidderminster Business Improvement District, artists and students from Kidderminster College to transform a local underpass, and planned to open a new community hub to strengthen community connections.
Following the success of Horsefair and Proud group, the partnership wanted to replicate this approach to support community leadership in other parts of the community. Sion Hill was an area of Broadwaters with relatively high levels of deprivation and isolation. Extensive outreach efforts were conducted by the worker and partnership members familiar with Sion Hill, who built relationships with shop owners, local organisations, and residents. Eventually, several residents came together to form the ‘Sion Hill Community Group’ to organise activities in and for the area. After supporting the group and funding promotional materials, the group quickly gained enough momentum to operate largely independently of the DY10 partnership and continued to thrive after initial Big Local funding.
The DY10 Big Local partnership wanted to improve both community participation and local green spaces within the area. To help them do this, they allocated funding to existing community groups, specifically the ‘Friends of’ groups who looked after local parks, to organise events and activities within the parks.
The Horsefair and Proud community group, and the Friends of Springfield Park and Friends of St Georges Park groups received Big Local funding to deliver a range of events and activities, which included the annual Mr Tee festival in honour of a Horsefair resident.
The partnership also allocated funds to improvements in the park to make them more inviting and accessible, including outdoor play equipment, a fitness trail, footpath, and memorial benches.
The DY10 Big Local partnership also helped to establish a new community facility in Springfield Park when Friends of Springfield Park and Wyre Forest School — a specialist school for children aged 4–19 with additional learning needs — collaborated to create a new community café. The partnership supported the project by funding furniture, kitchenware and volunteer training. The Blossom Tree Café opened mid-way through the Big Local programme, and provided a community facility, run by students.
As well as significant improvements to the local environment, Big Local investment helped to bring residents together across the neighbourhoods through park events and activities, which attracted new volunteers and strengthened the capacity of the park groups.
Among the DY10 Big Local partnership’s goals for children and young people was to offer engaging and meaningful activities, particularly during the summer holidays. Early in the programme, the partnership brought together organisations and agencies over a series of breakfast meetings to organise a comprehensive summer activities programme.
The summer youth programme delivered an array of free activities for young people, including sports, games, forest sleepovers and picnics. The first programme in 2016 was attended by 1,100 children, followed by 1,400 attendees the following year. By 2018, the partnership transitioned to a more supportive role, allowing other organisations and groups to lead delivery. The summer programme evolved over time, with activities expanding to more locations in the area. A “Big Picnic” was eventually launched, providing organisations and groups with an opportunity to share information about their support and services with the community. The Big Local DY10 partnership felt the summer activities programme successfully engaged local young people, and improved partnership working among local organisations and youth agencies.
The summer programme also enabled the partnership to have conversations with parents. These often highlighted feelings of isolation, which prompted the partnership to use Big Local funding to establish a new community space for parents, in a flat in Horsefair. Following renovations, the space became a hub for health and wellbeing activities benefiting local families, and provided the DY10 Big Local partnership with a visible presence in the neighbourhood before it closed in the final years of the Big Local programme.
Throughout the Big Local programme, the DY10 Big Local partnership prioritised activity that would support community health and wellbeing. Early on, they established a strong rapport with Home-Start Wyre Forest, with the organisation providing HR support to the partnership and employing their paid workers.
In 2019, they commissioned the organisation to support families in vulnerable situations over three years through weekly after- and pre-school family sessions, home visits, and recruiting and training residents as family-support volunteers.
Covid-19 significantly disrupted these initial plans, and the partnership and Home-Start Wyre Forest worked to adapt their support. Updated initiatives included running online health and wellbeing groups for parents, remote befriending services, and delivering a range of creative remote activities including cooking and movie nights. Home-Start Wyre Forest maintained contact with families throughout, ensuring ongoing support and continuity, while training new volunteers.
By 2021, the organisation had supported 131 children and 62 families. Home-Start Wyre Forest reported that the project had helped isolated families forge friendships, feel a sense of belonging and for some residents the support had changed their life. It also increased participation and volunteering within the area through recruiting and training at least 19 volunteers to support local families.
After the initial project, the partnership continued to work with Home-Start to meet the needs of residents in vulnerable situations. Refocusing their attention on financial resilience and fuel poverty, the partnership and the Centre for Sustainable Energy worked with Home-Start for two years, training volunteers to identify the signs of fuel poverty, and support families with energy advice and signposting.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Big Local DY10 partnership pivoted their overall strategy, crafting a new recovery plan in response to immediate needs. Through their existing grants programme, approximately £70,000 was swiftly allocated to local groups, schools, and organisations for the provision of food, essential resources, activity packs for families and isolated residents, and health and safety equipment.
In addition to distributing funding to enable a community response to the pandemic, the DY10 partnership drew on their networks and the relationships they had built over the years to encourage collaborative working. The partnership convened an online Big Local DY10 HBG Community Forum, bringing together local volunteers, agencies and organisations from their summer programme breakfast meetings. The forum met fortnightly to share information and challenges, and to join up response activity to avoid duplication. Through the forum, new initiatives were also launched, including providing vital financial support to residents through Citizens Advice from different community venues, and coaching and mentoring to help people back into employment.
Partnership members reflected that the Community Forum had significantly raised their profile, with other local organisations coming to them for support and advice based on their experience and local knowledge.
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 DY10 Big Local told Local Trust they used their Big Local funding.
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) (2019) ‘English indices of deprivation 2019’. Available at: gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2019 (Accessed 16 October 2024)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2012) ‘UK Census 2011: All persons’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/2011censuspopulationandhouseholdestimatesforenglandandwales (Accessed 16 October 2024)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2022) ‘UK Census 2021: All persons’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationandhouseholdestimatesenglandandwalescensus2021 (Accessed 16 October 2024)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023a) ‘UK Census 2021: Age structure of the population: Population aged under 16’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationandhouseholdestimatesenglandandwalescensus2021 (Accessed 16 October 2024)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023b) ‘UK Census 2021: Ethnic group: White: English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/datasets/TS021/editions/2021/versions/3 (Accessed 18 October 2024)
