Located half a mile east of Bolton town centre, Tonge with the Haulgh (TwTH) Big Local area comprised three distinct communities, each with their own history and amenities: Tonge Moor, Tonge Fold, and The Haulgh. Around half the local housing was traditional Victorian terraces, with most other homes being 1970s social housing.
Though densely populated in parts, the area included large open spaces such as Seven Acres Country Park to the east and Bradford Park to the south. The area had a range of organisations delivering activities in the community, but while Tonge Moor and Tonge Fold had community centres, there were no community spaces in The Haulgh.
The total population of the Tonge with the Haulgh Big Local area was 14,059 (ONS, 2022), and the majority were White British (ONS, 2023a). The partnership reported that parts of the area comprised families or extended families who had lived there for some time, while other parts had a high turnover of residents. Compared with the Bolton average, there was a higher proportion of private renters and lower proportion of homeowners in the area (ONS 2023b; ONS 2023c).
At the start of the Big Local programme, a range of organisations and groups were already delivering activities across the Tonge with the Haulgh area, partly as a result of continued community investment by the local housing association. It took time for the partnership to understand their role within this landscape, and identify where they could make a difference. Faced with bringing together three communities, with a range of activities already happening across them, they focused on adding value to what already existed. They did this by supporting community hubs in each of the communities and the activities taking place within each hub.
The partnership used their initial community consultation to engage people from all three communities located within the Big Local area. From this, they developed their initial Big Local plan, which focused on bringing residents together, reducing isolation and improving the local environment. The partnership set up thematic project groups to take forward these plans.
Partnership membership was fairly consistent year-on-year in terms of residents, community hub representatives, and local councillors; however, despite efforts, the partnership struggled to attract young people. They developed a shared vision of fairness, empathy and inclusivity, to support them with connecting the three communities. This helped them agree decisions when they experienced challenges or differences of opinion. Learning from Local Trust’s networking opportunities and leadership training helped the partnership make their decision-making more inclusive and widen local relationships.
Paid workers were engaged to coordinate their work, and support relationship-building in the community. Bolton Community and Voluntary Services (CVS), a local charitable organisation, was also commissioned to administer their Community Chest small-grants fund with the involvement of the partnership chair and other residents.
Over time, and especially following the Covid-19 pandemic, the partnership became more strategic, and flexible about their plans and delivery. They decided to move away from convening thematic project groups as a way of engaging residents in decision-making, which they felt would not be sustainable beyond the programme. Instead, they focused on improving and strengthening the community hubs through allocating funds to their activities and supporting both resident engagement and collaborative working. This resulted in better communication and regular opportunities for residents to feed into discussions about local needs and influence activities in the hubs.
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 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.
At the start of the Big Local programme, it became apparent that a range of community, faith, and charity groups were already delivering activities in the Tonge with the Haulgh Big Local area. However, residents often only knew about some of these activities, and usually only those that were local to them. To address this, the partnership invited local groups to become members. This helped increase knowledge among residents and the partnership about what was available in the area, and improved communication, connection, and integration between the three communities.
The partnership used this pooled knowledge to map out services in the area and distributed up-to-date timetables to promote activities and locations. As well as signposting people to existing provisions, they also used this information to identify and fill local gaps. They put together a booklet — ‘Welcoming Centres’ — that introduced residents to all the community hubs and activities in Tonge Moor, Tonge Fold and The Haulgh, and promised a warm welcome to all residents under the slogan ‘Something for Everyone’.
The partnership believed that by investing in volunteers they would build and leave behind a network of residents that could maintain their vision of strong, lasting relationships, and continue to promote and encourage attendance at community activities. They therefore supported volunteers to distribute the leaflets and timetables, spread information by word-of-mouth, and encourage people to try out activities.
Alongside existing services not being joined up, community hubs in the area were in need of improvement, and The Haulgh lacked a hub entirely. The partnership saw an opportunity to bring together each of these important locations in the area, to improve them and coordinate their work.
Several local hubs had previously struggled to access capital funding for improvements. Big Local funding contributed to the refurbishment and physical improvements of four of the six hubs in the area to create modern, bright centres that provided a warm, welcoming space to residents. In The Haulgh, Big Local funding was used to transform a local building into a hub.
The partnership wanted to improve more than just the physical aspects of community hubs, believing that they could strengthen their sustainability and achieve more for residents if they worked together as a network. Each community hub therefore had a representative on the partnership; community consultations were devolved to the hubs and findings brought together by the partnership to be used by all the hubs to plan their activities. This ensured a comprehensive community offer across all six locations.
The partnership felt the most prominent outcomes of empowering the hubs to work collectively were a comprehensive and consistent programme of activities that more residents were aware of, and an improved ability to meet the needs of residents whose main language was not English. Those involved in running the hubs reported a sense of ownership over the Big Local funded activities (including gardening, a shed, and an extension at The Haulgh) and incorporated many of them in their longer-term plans beyond the end of the Big Local programme.
The Tonge with the Haulgh Big Local partnership wanted to address loneliness and isolation in the community. They focused on achieving this partly through social prescribing (linking people to non-medical community services to improve health) which helped draw residents into the wide range of activities around them, build relationships, and access sources of support.
Arts on Prescription was a Big Local funded project which provided a safe space for women to come together and talk openly about their health, home life, families and aspirations. It provided art as a therapy to improve mental and physical wellbeing. The project was piloted through sessions in one local health centre with referrals from GPs and Health Improvement Practitioners. Following an increase in the numbers of women being referred, the project began running sessions in a second health centre, and extended referrals to include social prescribers, mental health teams and self-referral.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the project delivered 250 craft packs to residents, alongside creating 25 accompanying art therapy tutorial videos. A Facebook page was created for members to connect, share pictures of their projects, and support each other. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, the project reunited in one of the community hubs and resumed weekly sessions around a range of craft activities. Working with a local day centre enabled the project to include women with learning disabilities, who attended sessions with their support workers.
Arts on Prescription engaged with over 40 women of a wide range of ages, many of whom didn’t normally access community activities. Participants reported increased levels of wellbeing and feeling more connected to other people locally. Partnership members felt that the success of this and similar projects hinged on consistency; by taking place in the same place on the same day of the week, the people who attended them – many of whom were older, lonely or isolated – felt they could rely on them.
The partnership felt that these health and wellbeing projects were a key part of their legacy and were proud to see them become embedded in community hubs so they could continue beyond the Big Local programme.
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 Tonge with the Haulgh Big Local told Local Trust they used their Big Local funding.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2022) ‘UK Census 2021: All persons’. (Accessed 24 January 2025)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023a) ‘UK Census 2021: Ethnic group: White: English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British’. (Accessed 24 January 2025)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023b) ‘UK Census 2021: Private rented housing: Private landlord or letting agency’. (Accessed 24 January 2025)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2023c) ‘UK Census 2021: Owner occupied housing’. (Accessed 24 January 2025)
