The World’s End and Lots Road Big Local (WELR) area was located between King’s Road, Chelsea, and the River Thames, in west London. It spanned World’s End Estate (with 750 apartments in seven 1970s towers), Guinness Trust estate, Ashburnham Mansions, and Lots Road, with the partnership reflecting on perceived cultural and socio-economic divides. The area had a sheltered housing unit, the Chelsea Muslim Community Hub, two churches, a primary school, an under-5s centre, youth club, and access to Earl’s Court and Imperial Wharf stations.
In 2021, the area had a population of 3,003 people (ONS, 2022a). Compared to London, the area had a greater proportion of the population aged over 65, and a greater proportion of pensioners living alone (ONS, 2022b; 2024). Unemployment levels were higher than those in the wider borough and London, with 27 per cent of people aged 16–64 claiming unemployment benefits – compared to the borough at 12 per cent and London at 15 per cent (DWP, 2025a; 2025b). The Big Local area had pockets of deprivation, with three of its four neighbourhoods among the top 10 per cent most deprived in England (MHCLG, 2019).
The partnership’s early engagement with the World’s End and Lots Road community was through door-to-door outreach, coffee mornings, focus groups, and visiting under-5s and over-50s groups. The partnership found it difficult to engage the whole community (particularly in Lots Road) and mostly received feedback from people attending their training courses and workshops. Later in the programme, they commissioned an independent facilitator who helped them consult for their plan by delivering three partnership workshops, meeting with 10 organisations, and issuing surveys in different languages.
The partnership’s vision was to empower residents to create a strong and inclusive community, by nurturing existing local talent and energy. They initially focussed on four priorities – jobs, training, and enterprise; young people; community events and activities; and green and open spaces. Green and open spaces later evolved into ‘creating a welcoming environment’ as the partnership wanted to work on wider initiatives. While it had been important to the partnership throughout Big Local, ‘mental health and wellbeing’ was also added as a priority following the Covid-19 pandemic, as they wanted to support the community to recover and rebuild connections.
The partnership initially took a cautious approach to respond to residents’ ideas and see what would work, reviewing their projects annually to understand outcomes and decide which ones to continue. They researched what was available locally so they could focus on improving existing facilities and services (before creating new ones), and to create a list to inform residents of local opportunities. They started with a small-grants programme, but found it wasn’t working to engage residents, so they focused on supporting residents who approached them with ideas. For example, a resident met the Project Manager to set up Flashpoint Football Club and Big Local funding was used for the football kit.
Rather than the partnership delivering initiatives, Big Local funding was allocated to commissioning delivery and employing a paid Project Manager and a Coordinator. These roles were important for supporting delivery and building trust, with the partnership reflecting that having two long-term workers enabled consistency. They engaged people, ran the hub, applied for additional funding, sourced providers, and helped maintain relationships with key stakeholders. The partnership members also helped with activities, delivered a local newsletter to update residents, and informally engaged with residents, encouraging them to visit the hub.
Over time the partnership built relationships with their commissioned providers. Larger organisations, like Public Health England, saw the value of the programme and provided additional funding. One of the partnership’s workers successfully applied for external funding, which was allocated to other providers to deliver activities on behalf of World’s End and Lots Road Big Local.
To ensure the long-term legacy of their work, the partnership created Chelsea Big Local – a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) to continue beyond Big Local, across a wider geographic area – and invested in their members. The partnership felt that the consistency of a core group of residents as partnership members had helped build the profile of Big Local among the local community, which was especially important with changes in their Locally Trusted Organisation (LTO).
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.
Early in Big Local, the World’s End and Lots Road partnership planned to have a community hub as a focal point to build relationships in the community. The Project Manager secured external sponsorship to hire a room among the tower blocks, later negotiating with the local authority to move to a bigger room with a longer-term lease and a small office for the paid staff.
The hub provided a venue for activities and services, and a space for residents to approach Big Local staff and sign up to courses and events. This included regular table top sales, a weekly knitting club, and initiatives by local organisations, like a youth programme and the distribution of clothes, dry foods, and toiletries to support residents amid the cost-of-living crisis.
The extended lease with the local authority enabled the partnership’s legacy organisation – Chelsea Big Local – to continue delivering activities and events after Big Local. This included a weekly befriending club and a knitting group.
In their first plan, the partnership audited all the green and open spaces in the Big Local area and met with local housing associations to understand what improvements could be made. After consulting residents, they added an ivy wall and jasmine climbers in Stadium Street and Westfield House.
The partnership built a relationship with the local authority’s community engagement team, who advised them on leveraging further funding, and they secured £20,000 for planters in the piazza next to World’s End Estate.
Towards the end of the programme, the partnership worked with WE RESTART to improve local space and provide an activity for young people. The charity worked with 14 young people over a week, to design, construct, and paint a wooden butterfly sculpture that was placed in the piazza for three months. The aim of the project was to highlight the impact of climate change on butterfly migration and teach young people about the environment.
The partnership wanted to help build skills and confidence among young residents of World’s End and Lots Road. Following consultation with young people, an early project was a youth radio station. Participants developed interviewing, editing, and audiovisual skills through podcasting workshops, before interviewing people, and uploading the content to the website. Big Local funding was also invested in a homework club at a local school, and the partnership delivered a homework club at the hub, which was initially attended by 60 children.
Interest in these programmes waned, and the partnership reflected that it was difficult to keep young people engaged. They learnt what types of initiatives were successful and focussed on projects that had good engagement – like boxing, eight-week DJ programmes, art courses, and football. A reward scheme was also created to encourage participation, taking young people on regular trips to the zoo or aquarium and giving gift vouchers for consistent attendance.
Public Health England funded regular boxing sessions, for both beginners and advanced students, with 22 students attending regularly. Over several years, a resident taught art programmes at the hub, with young people creating pieces after visiting local sites for inspiration. The programme initially ran over six weeks, but in response to participant feedback, was extended to 10 weeks. The partnership felt that hosting free sessions was valuable, as local art classes were generally too expensive for residents. Big Local funding was also invested in a four-week football training course with 12 boys who went on to reach the quarter finals of a local tournament, as well as kits and under-17 league fees for Flashpoint Football Club.
Following the end of Big Local, Chelsea Big Local secured funding to continue delivering boxing sessions for children with special educational needs alongside sessions for under 11’s.
The World’s End and Lots Road partnership sought to empower and nurture talent, and they identified a local need for education and English for speakers of other languages. They commissioned providers to deliver free courses and workshops in six- to eight-week blocks, including professional and personal development. One of the workers planned courses with the providers based on residents’ suggestions and then promoted them in the community.
Training included floristry, self-defence, teaching assistant courses (through the Workers’ Educational Association), beauty, CCTV, security industry association courses, IT for beginners, and workshops for parents and carers to support children with maths and reading.
Big Local funding was invested in supporting employability alongside training. For example, laptops provided weekly opportunities for job searches and Security Industry Authority licences were sponsored for participants completing a course to be employed in security.
The partnership organised two job fairs with 13 organisations and 40 people attending. Two council workers also attended the hub monthly to provide job advice and support employability workshops, as part of a council initiative to go to people rather than making people travel to them.
The different initiatives were successful, with some residents having secured employment. For example, a floristry course participant went on to provide displays for events. One resident participated in several courses, going on to become a key provider for the Big Local project offering boxing sessions for the community.
The World’s End and Lots Road partnership sought to reduce social isolation, so Big Local funding was invested in courses and activities targeted at key demographic groups. These included quiz nights, parties for older residents, fortnightly Bingo (bringing older and younger residents together), a life coaching course, a 10-week health and strength programme for over-55s, and mental health awareness classes.
The NHS was also commissioned to provide cancer awareness sessions and the partnership received Public Health England funding to provide boxing classes to improve residents’ wellbeing. As Big Local wrapped up, the partnership’s legacy organisation worked with two local organisations to provide personal training along with support to access other services, specifically targeting people living in temporary accommodation.
Early on, it was important for the partnership to provide events for the World’s End and Lots Road community, and it grew as a priority to help combat social isolation. With limited affordable or free activities in the area, they wanted events to be free for residents to enable everyone to attend.
Events included a children’s Christmas party, a pensioner’s party, and a Christmas event with carollers, brass bands, and stalls. From 2015, the partnership, paid staff, and volunteers worked together to host an annual summer event, with around 200 people enjoying music, stalls, affordable food, and free fairground rides. During the summer event, they would also raise money for charity through a raffle, with prizes donated by local organisations.
The partnership sometimes found it difficult to keep costs down. To help with this, one of the workers negotiated with local businesses to ensure that food was appropriately priced, establishing regular providers. The partnership also established a relationship with the Chelsea Pensioners, who attended Big Local events where their choir performed. The Chelsea Pensioners also set aside tickets for WELR residents to attend their events, that may have otherwise been too expensive.
The World’s End and Lots Road partnership regularly organised day trips (including to the seaside and Christmas markets), with an adults’ coach and a family coach, with space for up to 100 people. They learnt to ask residents for a small refundable deposit, to ensure that people turned up. The partnership felt these events gave residents opportunities to get to know their neighbours, enabling deeper social connections.
As Big Local wrapped up, the partnership planned for the continued delivery of the established schedule of events through their new legacy organisation, including a summer event.
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 World’s End Estate and Lots Road Area Big Local told Local Trust they used their Big Local funding.
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) (2025a) ‘People on universal credit: not in employment’. Available at: gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statistics-february-2025 (Accessed 17 April 2025)
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) (2025b) ‘Jobseekers allowance’. Available at: gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statistics-february-2025 (Accessed 17 April 2025)
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 17 April 2025)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2022a) ‘UK Census 2021: All persons’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationandhouseholdestimatesenglandandwalescensus2021 (Accessed 17 April 2025)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2022b) ‘UK Census 2021: Age structure of the population: Aged 65 years and over’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationandhouseholdestimatesenglandandwalescensus2021 (Accessed 17 April 2025)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2024) ‘UK Census 2021: Household Composition by age: One-person household: Aged 66 years and over’. Available at: ons.gov.uk/datasets/RM057/editions/2021/versions/3 (Accessed 28 May 2025)
