Community Power Podcast Series 2 Episode 5: Changing gears in North London

Episode 5: Changing gears in North London

Chris Allen

Hello and welcome to another Community Power Podcast, a weekly series brought to you in partnership with Local Trust. My name’s Chris Allen, and in this series, we’re showcasing some incredible projects, focusing in particular on what happens when you give local people the resources, the power and the assets to make a difference to their neighbourhoods. With me, as ever, is our series producer, Beth Lazenby. Where are we off to this week, Beth? 

Beth Lazenby

So this week, Chris, we are off to North London to meet Laurie, who is part of Noel Park Big Local. And he’s going to be chatting to us about their inspiring project ​“Changing Gears”, which helps local young people get into employment. 

Chris Allen

Yes, Beth, indeed. And first of all, I asked Laurie to tell us a little bit about where he lives. 

Laurie

I live in Noel Park, which is here in North London. It’s a very unique place. It’s an estate that comprises of some 2200 houses. That was, that was built by a company called the Artisan Labourers and General Dwelling Company. 

Chris Allen

That sounds to me of a certain century. 

Laurie

It isn’t this century. Next year, 2023 will be the 140th anniversary of this estate. And very interesting, we have a Darwin Avenue named after Charles Darwin, who actually was an investor in the company. He believed this was a great idea to build affordable housing. Sounds quite familiar, even for today really. 

Chris Allen

It does actually, very, it’s very philanthropic. And do people locally have a sense of that, that history? Now, you know, you obviously have, but do other people around there have a sense of history, and does it make them proud of their area? 

Laurie

Yeah, and people like that idea of, you know, the history behind it. Avenues with the trees lined up and down. It makes it very friendly. 

Chris Allen

Right behind that, though, are those challenges within the community that you’re having to face up to, the Big Local supporting? 

Laurie

Yeah, like most communities these days, you know, life can be difficult. When the Right to Buy, in essence, came in, it changed the dynamics of the neighbourhood. So, a lot of places were bought under the Right to Buy, good or bad, on there. But then you changed hands again. It became private landlords, multiple tenancies. And, you know, although it’s a conservation area, a lot of the enforcement wasn’t put in place. They broke up their houses into little flats and this sort of thing. And there was a general feeling that that strong sense of community was suffering a bit that. You know, there’s people coming and going all the time. But in recent times, especially, I think probably in the last three or four or five years, when the COVID came in all this, I think people refocused attention more to community. Whereas before everyone was just getting on with their life, commuting in and out of London. Now, they are much more locally focused on that, which has been a good thing for the Big Local. So certainly runs in tandem with what our ideas and aspirations are of building the community. 

Chris Allen

And during that time then obviously the Big Local was in place. You got a bit of infrastructure in the community. Did that mean that people sort of looked to you, came to you? Or you just sort of say, ​“well, here’s an opportunity. We can serve the community here”, or build some links for the future? 

Laurie

The newspaper on the estate, Noel Park News. We had it printed and delivered through all the households. You know how you could get help, what we’re doing, what the projects we hard running, what we hope to do in the future, how to join in. And we found quite a good response from that. We got new partnership members coming on. 

Chris Allen

That’s good to know, because sometimes people tell me, it goes straight in the recycling. So you’ve done well there. 

Laurie

Well, I suppose when you’re in lockdown, people were reading anything that came through the door. 

Chris Allen

No indeed, indeed. Now, obviously you give your time to this. You’re a volunteer like you know, many, many, well, like all Big Local residents around the country. Why did you get involved? How did you get involved? 

Laurie

I came down…you probably guessed by now that my accent is not from North London. 

Chris Allen

I got a hint on that one. I got a hint on that one. 

Laurie

Yeah, like most Scots that come down here, I come down here for work in the 70s. I thought I’d be here for one, two, maybe three years. And here we go. You know, donkeys decades later, I’m still here. Yeah, I like it. I like the community. I enjoy working with the community, and it’s great fun meeting people, new people, even people that live in the next street for 20 or 30 years and you didn’t know them. Now, now I do. So yeah, I enjoy it. Yeah. I get a lot from it. 

Chris Allen

And has the partnership found it easy to engage with people locally? Have you found it easy to get people on board alongside you, or has it been a bit of a struggle? 

Laurie

It was initially, when it first came out. You know, I’m sure every, many other Big Locals had the same initial reaction, ​“Oh, we get a million pound to spend”. You know, everyone wanted to part of this. And whatever, you know. And the first couple of meetings we had, you know, literally 50, 60, 70, people coming along to them. People wanted swimming pools in their back garden and goodness knows what, you know. It was hard work to sort of filter it down into a working group whatever. 

I know, of course, you always get entrenched positions. Some people walked away from it. Some people wanted to get involved in it. And it went through a period of, to be honest, a bit doldrums, because we couldn’t get much decision making, because there wasn’t a consensus in there. But once we went through that storm, weathered that storm, and we found we had a working plan. You know, big consultation, got a plan together, was accepted. And then once people started seeing the tangible side of things, actually physically see the difference, more people think, ​“oh, right, it’s not just another, you know, let’s all talk about something. Something’s here we can see and get into.” That helped. 

Chris Allen

And you were able to get past that kind of it’s just a grant pot? It has, you know, bigger aims than that. It’s trying to bring about you know lasting change within the community. 

Laurie

For sure, for sure. I mean, that is, that is part of our legacy. Just now we know we’re making plans, you know, what happens post Big Local. 

Chris Allen

But first of all, tell me about this Changing Gears project. What’s that all about? 

Laurie

We’re looking at the challenges on our area here, we have high youth unemployment. We do have problems with inner London gangs and youth. We have problems with drug taking in youth. Drug dealings in youth. We have some areas on the estate and surroundings which have been neglected environmentally. And although the street crime has actually decreased, there’s still not a feeling a lot, especially older people ever a bit hesitant, maybe to go out after dark, that sort of thing, and they’re frightened of abuse and whatever that. To try and address all of these under one sort of project, we got with this idea of a venture called Changing Gears. The title actually Changing Gears is about changing gears in the community, stepping up through the gears as a community. 

Chris Allen

So the kind of culture changes behind this, is what you’re thinking of? 

Laurie

Yeah, culture and involvement. You know, you know, the confidence to be involved in the community again. Changing through the gears and upping the gears as we go along. Start small, but change up gear. So the actual project, Changing Gears, put together the idea that we would recruit some unemployed local youth. We would give them basic training and a wide range of very entry level skills – be it landscape, gardening, carpentry, painting, decorating, this sort of thing. So it would give them the opportunity when they went for employment, they have something on their CV. They know how to do risk assessments. They know, how general handling tools, how you actually behave, you turn up whatever. And we would partnership, at first we thought, might work, might not. If you get them doing environmental improvements on your estate. Again, people could see very visible, tangible results from it. And then, of course, the lockdown came along, and which actually worked so much advantage, because the government, which we foresaw might happen, did come up with a Kickstart Scheme. So originally, the partnership was going to pay wages, if you like. Kickstart Scheme came along and they paid it for us, which was quite handy Harry. 

Chris Allen

That’s nice when it works that way. 

Laurie

Yeah. It is very yeah. And also we spoke to the local authority, which is Haringey’s regeneration team. And they said, ​“Well, as it happens, we’ve got, potentially getting a grant from the Mayor of London’s office for this sort of thing as well”. We didn’t have premises, so we come up with this idea of getting a very environmental friendly shipping container installed in a local park, which is wooden clad with a living roof on it, and whatever. Built a yard behind it, and that became our headquarters for the Changing Gears. So then we recruited the two young, unemployed young men, and they came along. And I was doing three days a week with some sort of giving them entry level, sorting out tools, and we built a yard. We done stuff on the site. 

Chris Allen

You say that very casually, like it was the kind of thing I do, and whatever. But, and you make the whole thing sound easy to do, but I’m hearing behind that, we’ve got to recruit the young people. How many you got involved? How you support them? All the legislation support you put in place planning permission as well. So there must have been lots of complications within there. You just make the story sound incredibly easy. 

Laurie

Well, that’s true. I’m glossing it over a bit. I mean, I mean, we did have a few challenges, shall we say, and actually putting all together. But we got there with perseverance in the end. Funny enough, one of the interesting things — we thought we’d done all this sort of planning, got permission for the shipping container and the power plant in there. And then we were hit with the question, ​“have you got an unexploded ordinance certificate?” ​“Pardon!?” They said, ​“Well, this area was quite heavily bombed during the war, and if you’re putting in any big metal box somewhere, a shipping container, you should have an underground survey in case of unexploded ordinance underneath it.” 

Chris Allen

I thought if you’re in a metal box, you’d be safer than ever, actually. 

Laurie

So we’ve actually said to the council department who asked us this and said, ​“well, where would we get such a certificate?” They said, ​“well, from the owner of the land”. I said, ​“But you’re the owner of the land. Do you have a certificate?” And he said, ​“No, we’ll get back to you on that”. Of course, that was the end of it, they never came back at all. So there’s these idiosyncrasies that came along. I mean, one of the things that I had youth doing was what became known as the Noel Park Hedge Fund. We had them trimming people’s hedges, for the older people and that. Again, it was just a quirky name which engaged with people. To me, when you think of a hedge fund, you think of wealth investment. 

Chris Allen

Absolutely, absolutely.

Laurie

But this is social investment. 

Chris Allen

These, these, these names are quite important to you, aren’t you? I think you must work quite hard on them to make sure ​“I see these are gonna, these are gonna stick. This is gonna make a bit of impression”. 

Laurie

Well, it’s all part of marketing, isn’t it, I suppose? You know you want some that people think, ​“oh, what’s all that about?” 

Chris Allen

Indeed, and what’s, what’s the kind of impact you’re having? Because obviously you know it in terms of the young people. I think if you were helping one, you’re changing that young person’s life forever. But how many have you been working with? And I’m thinking some of this is very visible in the community, as you’ve been saying. What’s been the kind of feedback from local people, especially those who are a part of your hedge fund? 

Laurie

Well, at first, people are a bit sceptical, almost cynical. ​“Yeah, yeah we’ve had all this sort of thing before”, but once they’ve actually seen, you know, high-vis vests with branding on the back, ​“Noel Park Big Local”, on bicycles and youth on the estate carrying tools about. People saying, ​“Are you from the council? Are you doing this?” ​“No we’re from Big Local. Volunteers are doing this.” And they thought, ​“oh, what’s all that about?” You know, ​“can we get involved?” 

We’re doing the numbers. On the other hand, the two unemployed youth. One of them – both on six months with us, with myself on there. One of them is actually in employment now, for a local Electrical Company. The other one is still with us, working alongside contractors on the estate, have been doing major renovations. So it’s been highly visible. And now what we’re doing as well carrying on that Changing Gears. We’re doing workshops for people in the community. I’ll give an example. We recently, we’re running now workshops what we call, so it’s another catchy title: ​“Tools for the Timid”. So this is for people who are not used to, you know, using power tools like how to drill a hole in the wall, to hang up a mirror, how to use a saw, cut a piece of wood, which a lot of us take for granted because we’re that generation. But a lot of younger people, and possibly older people, haven’t had that opportunity, and are frightened of using those things. And that’s proven highly successful. 

Chris Allen

And within that have you got a good mix of people from different sort of backgrounds, male, female, people of different ethnic origins as well? 

Laurie

Yeah. I mean, this area, most of London, you know, it’s a wide variety of social mix and background. We have a lot of ethnic minorities that moved into London over the last 20 years. And we find that this is really breaking down barriers when you do workshops together. I mean, tomorrow, we’re planting 4000 bulbs across the estate, ready for spring next year as part of Noel Park’s 140th anniversary. It’s really bringing you know, it’s going to be our year next year. They’ll be out and about the estate planting ready to go for next year. 

Chris Allen

And that’ll be an exciting thing for local people to see, be part of and something to look forward to as well really. 

Forward looking, cost of living crisis is obviously around in the air for many people in Big Local areas as it happens. You know, they live in a cost of living crisis, don’t they, and this will make things worse for them. What’s the kind of impact this is having on the residents of your area? 

Laurie

We do have a lot of families here that struggle. I mean, there are many, many agencies and organisations about that grew up between the COVID. So that framework or foundation of support, there’s a lot of that about. Lots of food banks in the area already. But we are looking to copy what’s been done in many other Big Locals too, with a pantry. We’re giving out the newsletter telling people. But again, we’re trying not to duplicate what other people are doing. If we have resources, we just won’t be doing the same as someone else. If they’re really doing it, we’ll support them. We sponsor Meals on Wheels. We refurbished a cafe in the park as well. Again, that won’t be just a cafe, it will be a hub, Information Hub. I mean, there’s always silver linings, that when you have adverse conditions, it does help people come together. 

Chris Allen

As you’ve shown in the past. You know, all community work is a work in progress. What you were saying there really. So how do you see things going beyond the end of the kind of formal, Big Local programme? 

Laurie

You can never be too prescriptive in what’s going to happen in the future, but we see the legacy of the Noel Park Big Local having an established base, having momentum, community engagement on there, we can build upon it. The environmental thing, as I said earlier on, it’s a big historical estate. It’s got lots of lovely trees and that. If by the end of the 10 years, that they can be seen to be improved, it’s in everyone’s interest, tenants and leaseholders, private owners to maintain that. 

We’re working with very much environmentally with schools. We’re doing environmental education. We see them as the future. If we can build that foundation now, they’ll be teenagers by the time that’s all finished. We don’t want them getting involved in the negative aspects of life, but if we give them that sort of encouragement and base and activities, hopefully that will carry on. 

Chris Allen

Yeah, indeed. And you’ve retired once. You see this, possibly as being yourself retiring again at this or would you think, ​“Oh, I’m just going to carry on doing this. I love it so much.”? 

Laurie

I think I’ll go back to work for a rest. But I would personally like to think that, you know, I’ve lived here over 40 years. My own children have grown up here, and I’d like to leave something behind. My thinking is, not that I’m leaving behind, but the community has. So when I can’t do anymore, I think, well, I’ve done my bit, and hopefully it’s helped. 

Chris Allen

That was Laurie White of Noel Park Big Local in London, looking forward to his second retirement we might say. I was interested there, Beth, by the work they’re doing with young people, really. That’s a really difficult thing to take on, and in past, regeneration schemes often been ignored. 

Beth Lazenby

Yeah, and we have heard in the previous series, we got lots of young people on to talk about how they’re involved in Big Local as part of the partnership. But it’s really interesting to hear from a Big Local who have set up a scheme specifically to teach them skills to go out into the community and get employment. And it sounded like a great opportunity to be part of it for those young people who’ve been involved already. 

Chris Allen

And we did chat off air with Laurie about the difficulty of recruiting. So if people are trying to recruit and say, ​“well, we can’t. How come they could?” It is hard work. 

Beth Lazenby

Yeah, absolutely. And they’ve obviously done some amazing sort of marketing work with all of the names that they’ve come up with, and you have to cut through that noise and find a way to get those young people in the door. And it sounds like now that they’ve got a couple people through, they’ll start to break down those barriers and bring in more young people to benefit from it as well. 

Chris Allen

And they’re looking forward to the future as well. Where can we find out more? 

Beth Lazenby

As always, you can find out more about Noel Park Big Local and all of their activities in the show notes. 

Chris Allen

Thanks Beth. And we both look forward to joining us next time on the Community Power Podcast brought to you by Local Trust, showing what happens when you give local people the power, the money and the assets to make a difference in their own neighbourhoods.