The Grassland Hasmoor Big Local area combined two adjacent but distinct communities: Hasland and Grassmoor, both in the East Midlands of England. Hasland was the larger of the two, with the village of Grassmoor sitting three miles to the south. The whole Big Local area was served by Derbyshire County Council, but a number of district, borough and parish were also active within the area.
In 2021, the Big Local area was home to approximately 10,000 residents (ONS, 2022). Twenty-two per cent of people living in the area were over the age of 65 (ONS, 2023a), and 12 per cent of those were in receipt of Pension Credit (DWP, 2025). Lone parent households made up 28 per cent of the households in the area with dependent children, slightly higher than 23 per cent in the East Midlands as a whole (ONS, 2024). A large proportion of housing in the area was owner-occupied (66 per cent) although 21 per cent of households lived in socially rented housing (ONS, 2023b).
Hasland and Grassmoor each had their own discrete community assets, including local parks and primary schools, and both areas were surrounded by open green space. They shared some services and people travelled between the areas to access shops, businesses, and healthcare facilities (though some services were only available in Hasland). A bus service ran through both villages, connecting them to the larger towns of Chesterfield to the north and Clay Cross to the south.
The Grassland Hasmoor Big Local partnership’s plan was informed from community consultation and comprised three key themes:
People: Expanding the range of provisions for children and young people, addressing the challenges facing working age families such as financial exclusion, and improving access to services and social activities for older residents.
Place: Making green and open spaces more accessible, enhancing the look of the area, and developing the quality of community facilities in both villages.
Communication and engagement: Informing and involving residents.
A key aim was to support the two communities to work together for mutual benefit. The Grassland Hasmoor Big Local partnership created a structure to help ensure equity in governance and delivery across the two villages. It held an annual Open Forum to report its progress to the wider community and to elect partnership members for a term of three years. The partnership comprised 14 voting members: seven residents from Hasland and seven from Grassmoor, as well as potentially up to seven non-voting local stakeholders. A chairperson familiar with Hasland and Grassmoor but independent of community agendas and politics was selected from outside the area.
The Grassland Hasmoor Big Local partnership formed several working groups to deliver its priorities: Green and Open Spaces, Youth and Children’s Support, Senior Citizens, Built Environment, Employment and Skills, and Community Development. The role of the working groups included raising awareness and involvement within the community, responding to local issues, developing an action plan, and seeking funding. Several of these working groups became constituted bodies in their own right.
The partnership’s overall aim was to provide opportunities for more residents to become active in their community, and their approach of setting up working groups proved instrumental in building capacity within the community, as well as a volunteering culture and infrastructure strong enough to continue beyond the Big Local programme.
Activities within the area were mostly delivered through the voluntary effort of residents, with some support from paid workers, though specialist skills such as youth workers and employment advisors were commissioned as needed. A key principle for the partnership was that at least 50 per cent of all project costs would be covered with match-funding and/or in-kind support. This way of working leveraged additional funding, training and support.
Creating a long-term legacy in the area was important for the partnership. In 2019 they set up a new organisation to continue delivering after the end of the Big Local funding. Grassland Hasmoor Futures Ltd took on the role of Locally Trusted Organisation (LTO) and employed staff, delivered a small grants programme, and was commissioned to deliver a number of projects on behalf of the partnership, such as the community support service.
In 2020, the organisation registered as a charity and by 2025 several members of the partnership had joined as trustees. The organisation changed its name to Let’s Connect Communities Together (LCCT), to reflect its role as a community anchor for residents and organisations. LCCT continued to support communities through providing access to funding, support, information and advice, and managing The Hub @ The Club space in Hasland.
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.
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.
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.
The Green and Open Spaces working group was formed at an inaugural Grassland Hasmoor Big Local partnership meeting with the aim of connecting the two communities. It recruited volunteers and built relationships with a range of public agencies and charities to influence green space policy and build support for additional investment in the area, which was estimated at over £1 million.
Local residents removed stiles and cut back overgrowth to improve the accessibility of walking routes in and around the area; ensured the construction of a new footpath and cycle route to link the villages; created a new Facebook group for the area with thousands of members; contributed to flood management; created a ‘pocket park’ on previously unused ground at the edge of a social housing estate; and built two pétanque or boules courts (the first proved so popular that the second was later added).
These schemes attracted hundreds of local volunteers – people who became more active as a result of the physical effort involved in making the initiatives happen, the work of maintaining them, and through using the spaces they created. They also built a legacy of community ownership over an improved and more useable local environment.
An ongoing priority for the Grassland Hasmoor Big Local partnership was to create high quality community facilities. During the Big Local programme they created thriving community spaces in both villages.
One of the partnership’s biggest projects was creating a purpose-built community sports facility in Barnes Park in Grassmoor, where the existing pavilion had fallen into disrepair. Over the years, the partnership worked with multiple stakeholders, including the parish council and sports clubs, to replace the pavilion. The project attracted over £230,000 in Big Local funding, along with funding from district, parish and county councils, and Sports England. The Grassmoor Pavilion became a valuable community resource, with a fully equipped kitchen and toilet facilities. The pavilion transformed the way that the park was used, particularly by families, hosting community activities, holiday schemes and events.
In addition to the new pavilion, the partnership also helped to create a new community space in Hasland. Big Local funding enabled rooms within the Hasland Club to be refurbished, opening up the space to more community groups, businesses, individuals and charities to deliver community activities. Renamed as The Hasland Hub @ The Club, it provided an indoor space for weekly activities, including employment advice, and volunteer-delivered IT and wellbeing sessions for older people. The refurbished office space also provided a base for the partnership, enabling them to increase their local presence.
The first Grassland Hasmoor Big Local plan focused on building community capacity, and supporting community action, involvement and influence. Volunteers were encouraged and signposted towards training opportunities in first aid, food hygiene, and developing leadership skills by running exercise classes for older residents. The volunteers were then able to take these skills on into other opportunities beyond the end of the Big Local programme.
Mobilising the community through participation and community-led delivery, including helping them to grow and develop their own ideas, was paramount to the ethos of the partnership. A community support service (comprising part time paid workers and unpaid volunteers) was established to provide time and resources to share community information, promote volunteering opportunities, support and advise groups and provide small community grants. For example, a new partnership member wanted to make a difference for people who were isolated and in poor mental health. They were supported to make strategic connections and attract external funding, which led to a regular ‘Let’s Chat’ drop-in session, which positively impacted individuals’ lives.
Over the years, the partnership helped to launch a number of resident-led projects, with many continuing as independent groups, including the Spare Thyme Community Allotment created by residents to grow and harvest food.
Before the Big Local programme had started, young people had expressed their desire for a skate park. The Grassland Hasmoor Big Local partnership responded to this by funding the Skate Wheels Park in Eastwood Park. They involved young people in the design of the project, and it became a well-used facility with great feedback from its users.
The children and young people’s working group continued to focus on improving the physical and emotional wellbeing of young people in the area. They delivered a series of holiday activities for hundreds of children in both Hasland and Grassmoor. As well as providing fun and food during the school holidays, links were developed with young people, and their parents and carers. Information gathered from young people and their families at these early events led to a Big Local youth project in Grassmoor, which saw a commissioned outreach service providing a range of weekly activities, safe spaces, and support services for 11–18 year-olds.
Throughout the Big Local programme, the Senior Citizens working group developed, delivered and supported a range of activity to benefit older residents in the area. These included food hampers for older residents and regular weekly sessions delivered by volunteers focusing on physical activity (such as chair-based exercise and team games) and IT skills (such as their ‘Coffee, Tea and IT’). Several members who took part in the IT sessions said they were their main point of social contact with others, and that they felt safe and made new friends.
Another successful project was Men in Sheds. It focused on woodwork and improving the mental wellbeing of older residents, by providing a space where they could gather and chat. The project expanded to twice-weekly sessions and became primarily a social group.
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 Grassland and Hasmoor Big Local told Local Trust they used their Big Local funding.
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) (2025) ‘Pension credit claimants (% of all pensioners)’. Available at: gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-statistics-29-april-2013-to-14-august-2025 (Accessed 12 May 2026)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2022) ‘UK Census 2021 All persons’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationandhouseholdestimatesenglandandwalescensus2021 (Accessed 7 October 2025)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023a) ‘UK Census 2021: Age structure of the population: Aged 65 years and over’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationandhouseholdestimatesenglandandwalescensus2021 (Accessed 12 May 2026)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023b) ‘UK Census 2021: Housing tenure’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingenglandandwales/census2021 (Accessed 12 May 2026)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2024) ‘UK Census 2021: Families and households: Lone parent households with dependent children’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/datasets/familiesandhouseholdsfamiliesandhouseholds/current (Accessed 12 May 2026)
