The Sale West Big Local area was in the town of Sale, in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester. It was a few miles from Sale town centre, and around nine miles south-west of Manchester city centre. The area included the Sale West housing estate, which was built in the 1970s and surrounded by roads, green space, and residential housing.
The area had a population of 3,634 (ONS, 2022a), and was in the top 10 per cent most deprived areas in England (MCHLG, 2019). Compared to wider Trafford, it had a higher proportion of children (aged 19 or under) living in low-income families (29 per cent compared to 15 per cent), and unemployed adults (5 per cent compared to 3 per cent) (DWP, 2025; ONS, 2022b).
Most local housing was social rented (ONS, 2023a). Bus services were available, but residents found them unreliable. Car ownership was low, with 36 per cent of households not having access to a car or van, compared to 19 per cent in Trafford (ONS, 2023b). These factors combined led to a sense of disconnection and isolation from surrounding areas.
Local assets included a community centre, schools, health centre, religious centres, small shops, and green space, while larger shops and parks lay just outside the area. The area experienced changes during Big Local, with a multi-million-pound regeneration programme improving existing properties, developing new housing, and investing in facilities and green spaces (Irwell Valley Homes, 2023).
The Sale West Big Local partnership was known as Our Sale West Partnership Board. Their vision was a future where everyone in Sale lives healthy, happy lives, and reaches their full potential; wanting to build a stronger and fairer community together. The partnership identified four priorities, which remained throughout the programme – youth; health and wellbeing; jobs and training; and environment and community facilities.
Early community consultation involved speaking with residents and community groups, and collecting views at events and with questionnaires. Throughout Big Local, the partnership consulted the community, shared updates, and sought new members through events and activities, annual surveys, and open meetings.
The Sale West estate had a history of community activity and resident-led action, which formed a foundation for Big Local. Many partnership members brought experience, knowledge, and contacts, having previously contributed to networks with residents, agencies, and community organisations. Wanting to build on existing local collaboration, they identified delivery partners and invited organisations to meetings to contribute and share information.
The partnership wanted to support residents to fulfil their ambitions. So, they distributed grants to help residents deliver their own projects, and created volunteering opportunities where residents could further their skills and experience.
The partnership shared decision-making, with a subgroup leading each priority. While the subgroups were mainly partnership members, they also invited stakeholders (like GPs, schools, and colleges).
From the beginning, the partnership invested in paid support and recruited an experienced project development worker, who remained with them throughout. This worker played an important role, managing projects and a growing team of paid workers. The partnership and workers’ efforts attracted more external funding, enabling new roles and projects. By the end of the programme, eight paid roles supported the partnership and delivered projects.
The council-owned Sale West Youth and Community Centre was the only community centre in the area; while valued by the community, it was in need of investment. Sale West Big Local was based in the centre, in space rented for an office and community activities. For years, the partnership pursued plans with stakeholders to create a new multipurpose community building. However, when high costs made this unfeasible, further improvements were made to the community centre, which had become integral to delivering activities and support. The partnership reflected that their presence reinvigorated the space, increasing community engagement.
The partnership estimated they had brought an additional £600,000 into the area during Big Local. In 2024, they received the Trafford Community Award and a High Sheriff’s Award for their community work, and commissioned an external evaluation of their impact.
Wanting to build on their achievements and continue beyond Big Local, the partnership created a legacy organisation, Our Sale West Community Interest Organisation (CIO). In 2025, they secured over £269,000 from the National Lottery Community Fund to cover core costs and continue popular community events and activities.
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.
Many Big Local partnerships funded workers to support the delivery of Big Local. They were paid individuals, as opposed to those who volunteered their time. They were different from Big Local reps and advisors, who were appointed and paid by Local Trust.
In 2014, the local council decided to withdraw youth services from the Sale West Youth and Community Centre, due to budget reductions. The partnership’s community consultations identified youth provision as a priority, so Big Local funding was used for several projects for young people and to bring youth provision back into the community centre. This included reintroducing a weekly youth club, delivered by different organisations. However, the approach proved expensive, and in the final years of Big Local, Gorse Hill Studios and Trafford College were funded to deliver a youth leadership course instead. This course aimed to train volunteers to deliver the club, providing a more sustainable, long-term approach.
As well as increasing local youth provision, the partnership wanted to promote the voices of young people. Following conversations with local primary and secondary schools in 2017, they organised a school council conference the following summer. The schools and partnership worked together to identify a conference theme, and £500 in Big Local funding was allocated to each school to deliver a related project. At the conference, students were key speakers, presented their projects, and participated in related workshops.
Further conferences were held in 2022 and 2024, each involving more schools, including some from outside the Big Local area. As well as helping the partnership to build relationships with schools, members felt the conferences were positive opportunities to showcase and support young people’s ideas and projects relating to the partnership’s priorities.
The Our Sale West partnership supported several projects to improve residents’ access to free or affordable food. These included weekly subsidised community lunches for older residents at the community-run Sunshine Café, and free food and activity programmes for children during school holidays.
The partnership supported a food bank (where Trussell Trust provided five days’ worth of meals to households) and regular food projects at the Sale West Youth and Community Centre. Working with a local housing provider, they commissioned a charity, The Bread and Butter Thing, to run a food club offering about 60 resident members weekly fruit and vegetables for £8. The partnership also delivered Food Share, where volunteers and Big Local workers collected surplus food from supermarkets and offered it to residents for free.
The partnership estimated that by 2025, they had provided over a million meals. The work around food provision was evaluated as a significant service to the community. Other support was made available at the same time as food projects, like Citizens Advice and a community nurse.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, partnership members, workers, and volunteers supported residents by delivering food parcels from the Sale West Youth and Community Centre. Trafford Council invited Sale West Big Local to become one of six community organisations delivering an emergency support hub on their behalf, as part of the Trafford Community Hub network. The Sale West Big Local team managed a phone line and coordinated the delivery of food and other support through community organisations, agencies, and volunteers. As the partnership began to support residents beyond Sale West, covering an area of around 134,000 people, the council provided additional funding for staff and management. This funding provided for a hub coordinator, whose role included coordinating food support.
When no longer needed for Covid-19 pandemic emergency response, the hub shifted to provide general support. The Sale Community Support Hub provided services to meet continuing community needs, including emergency support.
Serving as an emergency support hub was pivotal for Our Sale West, increasing their profile and opening the door to new opportunities and funding. Based on their work and reputation, they attracted resources from the local council, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), NHS, and the National Lottery Community Fund.
The partnership wanted to make it easier for residents to access support and services, particularly as the cost and reliability of transport could make it difficult to travel out of the area. From early in Big Local, they focused on bringing more support into the area, like setting up a new Community Information Hub in the Sale West Youth and Community Centre. Big Local funding was used to employ a coordinator, who provided residents with advice, support, and signposting on employment, training, and debt. In addition, weekly Citizens Advice sessions were commissioned to support people experiencing issues relating to finances, housing, and employment.
Following the partnership’s work as an emergency support hub during the Covid-19 pandemic, more organisations, services, and agencies began delivering from the community centre, with something available every day. Support services included a DWP Youth Hub, and housing and neighbourhood officers. In the final year of Big Local the council funded the partnership to deliver the Sale West Advice Hub. This formed part of the council’s focus on bringing services together in one place, enabling residents to access different services at the same time.
Local health and wellbeing was an ongoing priority for the Our Sale West partnership, and part of their vision for the community. They supported creative and sporting activities, and Big Local funding subsidised community trips and events to promote wellbeing and bring people together.
Concerned about local health inequality, the partnership wanted to improve residents’ access to services, particularly as local transport had been raised as an issue. The partnership worked with Sale Central Primary Care Network (PCN), and voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) and public sector partners to improve access to health services and support. A nurse was stationed in the Sale West Youth and Community Centre every week to provide a drop-in service alongside Citizens Advice and food bank sessions. In 2024, this project worked with 255 residents who might not otherwise have accessed health advice.
Another project launched the following year, helping older residents and those with mobility issues to access healthcare appointments. The Trafford Circle Community Transport scheme used volunteer drivers to take service-users to appointments as an alternative to buses or taxis.
The partnership felt that they had been able to build relationships with GPs and public health bodies, in a way they hadn’t before these projects. Our Sale West was recognised for their health work and for improving community access to services in 2025. The Mayor of Greater Manchester visited the community centre, seeing it as an example of moving more services into communities. Just after the Big Local programme ended, in 2026, the centre became one of Trafford’s first Live Well centres, selected by residents to run services designed to support resident’s wellbeing.
As part of the Our Sale West priority to protect and improve the environment and green spaces, the partnership supported community planting, environment-themed events, and major projects.
Sale West Wood, near the Sale West Youth and Community Centre, had seating and a play area that were not well-used. Mid-way through Big Local, in 2018, the partnership worked with the community, schools, and delivery partners to commission a new masterplan for the park. Residents contributed to designs, and work was funded from a combination of sources, with around £100,000 from external sources like Manchester Airport Foundation, Pocket Parks, and Veolia Environmental Trust. Over six years play equipment was refurbished and relocated, a multi-use games area was refurbished, new seating was installed, and volunteers planted a new wildflower meadow and edible plant area. The project led to increased use of play areas and the woods, with volunteers maintaining the meadow and planters. As the Big Local programme came to an end, amphitheatre style-seating was added to the green space, providing new opportunities for groups and clubs to meet outdoors.
The partnership also created a new community garden on the site of a closed pub. Big Local funding was used for a landscape architect to design the garden and an artist to decorate the walls with designs about local wildlife and the partnership’s priorities. A resident named it Phoenix Gardens, to reflect the community’s resilience, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. It became well used by residents, and a volunteer gardening group was set up to maintain it.
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 Sale West 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’. Available at: gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2024 (Accessed 16 March 2026)
Irwell Valley Homes (2023) ‘Regeneration of Sale West recognised with prestigious Northern Housing Award’. Available at: irwellvalley.co.uk/about-us/our-news/corporate-news/regeneration-of-sale-west-recognised-with-prestigious-northern-housing-award/ (Accessed 16 March 2026)
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) (2019) ‘English indices of deprivation 2019’. Available at: gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2019 (Accessed 16 March 2026)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2022a) ‘UK Census 2021: All persons’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationandhouseholdestimatesenglandandwalescensus2021 (Accessed 16 March 2026)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2022b) ‘UK Census 2021: Economic activity status, England and Wales: Economically active: Unemployed’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/economicactivitystatusenglandandwales/census2021#economic-activity-status (Accessed 16 March 2026)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023a) ‘UK Census 2021: Social rented housing’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingenglandandwales/census2021 (Accessed 16 March 2026)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023b) ‘UK Census 2021: No cars or vans in household’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/datasets/TS045/editions/2021/versions/4 (Accessed 16 March 2026)
