Community Power Podcast Series 3 Episode 8: Destination Dover – entrepreneurship in action with Dover Big Local

Episode 8: Destination Dover – entrepreneurship in action with Dover Big Local

Chris Allen

Hello and welcome to the latest Community Power Podcast, a series being brought to you in partnership with Local Trust. My name is Chris Allen, and in this series of podcasts, 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 is series producer Kirsten Sinclair. So Kirsten, this week, we’re heading to one of the UK’s most famous towns. 

Kirsten Sinclair

We are Chris. Dover is best known for its white cliffs, ferry port and above all, the immortalised voice of Dame Vera Lynn. There is, though, another side to Dover, and the Big Local partnership wanted to focus on entrepreneurs and those aspiring to run their own businesses. 

Chris Allen

Indeed. So let’s hear from the long term chair Anita Luckett about the lesser known side of this historic town and the Big Local programme. 

Anita Luckett

So Dover Big Local was founded out of the London Road community organisation. And that had been a group set up to try and just improve the landscape. Dover has one focused shopping area nearer the sea, and then a great big, long high street that has a lot of takeaways, small shops, start up shops, but had become quite untidy. And this group was set up to engage with shopkeepers, try and try and improve that area. And then, of course, we heard about the Big Local funding and thought, ​“Ah, let’s, let’s have a go at getting some of that.” And in partnership with the District Council, applied for funding. They helped define the area that funding would apply to, which, in some case was quite peculiar, because it did things like go down the middle of one road. So once I’ve got funding one side, so we were we had to talk about how, how flexible we could be about that. But we did an awful lot of focus groups at the beginning to find out what people wanted, how they’d like the money spent, and application to be focused before we put our original bid in. 

Chris Allen

Right? So you started off, well, obviously, with a bit of a business focus there. The importance of the local economy was there very much in your your thinking. And I think for many Big Local areas, it’s something they think about later or not at all. And so therefore, starting that position gave you a, perhaps a position of strength, because you’re already thinking through the issues there. And you know, particularly, as I say, as the outsider from from Dover, you don’t see the normal community if I put it that way, the people actually live there, day by day and and what it’s like to live in Dover, as opposed to just pass through. 

Anita Luckett

Its economy has changed hugely, because initially it had quite a bit of industry. It had a famous Gatic engineering works that made manholes that you can find all over the world, and quite a lot of light engineering, small manufacturing. I’d say the shift has been almost entirely to service industries now. There is a little bit of manufacturing in Dover, some software business, but and obviously the employments that the dock docks brings. A lot of our thinking have been around employment. We have significant deprivation registered in the town, despite having very wealthy docks at our seafront. 

Chris Allen

Does that mean that the wealth doesn’t sort of cascade out very far? 

Anita Luckett

It does to an extent. So if you’re a qualified seafarer, it does. If you’re working in the docks or in the supporting industries for the docks, yes, it does. But the lack of the kind of manual jobs, basic jobs – other than supermarket and service industries – means it’s a little bit of a gap as to what people can do. We have an excellent college in Dover, Southgate college, who are now working, working towards training people into the industries that exist. 

Chris Allen

So Anita, you started off with some focus groups. Out of the focus groups, what were the kind of themes that were emerging? 

Anita Luckett

So we had things emerging of the local economy, health and wellbeing. We have a lot of people living with with challenges around illness, childcare, all those kinds of things. Arts and culture – Dover has a really rich cultural history, and a lot of groups doing quite creative work, who weren’t at the time all talking to each other terribly well, just because they were busy doing their own thing. Communications, we were feeling that people weren’t necessarily linking up in what they were doing. So there was an aspiration to get organisations talking to each other. And green spaces was the other focus that we had. There’s there’s been an element right at the beginning of wanting to make people more aware, to engage schools and individuals with enjoying that environment that exists, as well as the White Cliffs. 

Chris Allen

Out of those then I suppose the local economy stands out to me a little bit because many Big Local areas didn’t, you know, get there initially wasn’t on their agenda to start with. So that was a unique feature. How did you begin to take that one forward in particular? 

Anita Luckett

We particularly started looking at in terms of self employment, because for people who have a health problem or childcare issues, that there are a number of reasons why having a traditional job might be difficult. And lots of those people might like to start some kind of a small business. So we became engaged with the company who are now the Rebel Business School. They had a different name then. Excellent people for Big Locals to get involved with. They now do online courses rather than visiting you to do a physical course. 

Chris Allen

Did you have people in the partnership that felt confident in in working the business environments and the small business and encouraging people and training? Because, again, sometimes that is the capacity gap in local partnerships that they don’t have anybody who feels they could take it forward yourself and others perhaps? 

Anita Luckett

Yeah, we are very lucky on the committee that we had then, and do have now that we have a number of business people. People who are used to organising other people to do things maybe don’t have some of the experience of some of the challenges that you find at the the delivery end. So having people at both ends, people who could see how to scope a big project, and people who said, ​“Oh, but I if you do that, how are we going to achieve this thing for an individual” was a very was a very useful spread of skills. 

Chris Allen

Indeed. Now you moved on from your theme groups, and you use Co-innovation hub as a mechanism for development as well. How did that come in, and what the impact did that have on your partnership? 

Anita Luckett

Okay, so Co-innovation [community hub] was a piece of luck, really, that we became aware, (and then a piece of hard work) that became we became aware that the Co-op were moving out of their premises, and then it was standing derelict with nobody in it. I say derelict it was, it was empty. It did need quite a lot of work. So it was always clear to everybody it was going to get knocked down. We knew that when we took it on, and we did have periods of having to deal with some of those issues when we owned it. 

Chris Allen

And was it costly? Because obviously, if the building’s got a finite life, then putting investment in there is obviously got to have a question mark about how long and what’s worth? 

Anita Luckett

It was a big risk. I mean, that’s one of the things we’ve talked to people about having Big Local funds, is that sometimes it’s just worth taking a risk, and you’ve got to weigh up the balance of the value of the risk you’re taking. Not only is to would it, would it break even? Should you spend the money? But also the value it has to people who are engaging with the project that you put in there. It did cost us far more than we costed to fix the building. And one of the things we would caution anybody looking to do a project like this with a meanwhile building or a temporary use, is whatever you think you’re going to spend on it, double it. Because there will always, especially with older buildings, be massive surprises. Contractors who suddenly find something that quite genuinely needs much more work than you thought it did. In the end, it did cost Big Local a significant chunk of money. Do we think it was worth it? Yes, because out of the businesses that started in there a number of outcomes have come. Some during the life of the actual old Co-op building have moved out into shops and have started businesses that are still running. A number of our small shops moved out into into the town. Under 20, but certainly higher than 10. 

There were also people who discovered that a business wasn’t the right thing for them. Now, though, that sounds like a disaster, actually, it’s not. Because discovering that a business isn’t the right thing for you is a much safer thing to do in a space where you’re paying by the month and you don’t have overheads like gas and electric and you don’t have massive business rates to pay, than buying a shop, doing it all up and then discovering it doesn’t work. Or that you’re not a business person. Discovering what it is to be as a business person was part of what Co-innovation was about: making sure you’re paying your taxes, making sure you’re putting some reserves away, you’re not spending all the money you get in you leave something for stock. All of those things people if they don’t experience them, they don’t necessarily think about them. 

It’s interesting, because some of those people are running businesses, but they’re also very much community, and that has a high value to them. So they’re all the way from quite successful trading businesses and making proper profit to people who are covering their costs for something that’s more than a hobby but a little less than a fully fledged, highly profitable business. But that has value too. Say they have an enhanced life from from doing that, and from coming in every day and seeing all the lovely people they work with, and seeing the public and engaging with people, then that’s equally valuable to having opened a new shop. Or that you’re not that you’re not the kind of person. 

Chris Allen

What I’m hearing is, you know, there’s, there’s an element of risk taking in this inevitably. But actually it’s about having a calculated risk and then minimising the risks for others who might want to try something, but it might not work out for them. But actually, by taking that risk in the first place, you’ve got some real successes here. People who’ve discovered, you know what they can do. Perhaps some people never thought they could be business people, they end up being business people. And others who thought they could be thinking, ​“Oh, but you saved me from a disaster there. I now can go in a different direction in my life.” It’s all about again, helping people on their own personal journey, as well as a community. 

Anita Luckett

So Dover Big Local made a decision that the end of our involvement would be at the end of Co-innovation. 

Chris Allen

So you started your legacy journey fairly early on in your programme, which, again, has really helped I imagine. 

Anita Luckett

Yeah, there’s been a number of things we’ve floated and then let them go off on their own tangent. Because if they’re able to then self support, then the money that we invested has done its job. 

Chris Allen

Indeed, indeed, another big aspect we talked, we referenced it earlier when we talk about Dover, really, as a town, and our image of it is, is tourism. But Dover, I think, is probably the kind of place where people go through rather than go to. 

Anita Luckett

Yes, it has been, and that’s been the reason for the next project we’ll talk about: Destination Dover. Dover’s got a wealth of historical places to visit. Dover Castle is English Heritage, most visited site in the UK. 

Chris Allen

Wow.

Anita Luckett

But it’s on the top of a hill, so people invariably go to Dover castle and go home. Or they go and get on the ferry, but they don’t stop in Dover and spend their money. What’s the aspiration of Destination Dover has been is that actually they might stay for a weekend instead. Or at least come early and get out for a few hours and do something else and go. Dover Castle is really a whole day visit. So you would hope the people coming there might then perhaps get a bed and breakfast and and then spend an extra day the next day doing other things in Dover. So we have a Roman painted house, and we have a fantastic museum with a Bronze Age boat in it, which is unique in Europe. It got dug up, when part of the new road was going through. So all those things exist in Dover and many more. 

Chris Allen

How do you get people to…this is a real change of thinking about Dover, isn’t it, you’re trying to achieve here. What was the kind of things you did? 

Anita Luckett

So the District Council and the town council have been huge players in this, particularly the town council, who’s been the employer for the person employed to do this. Dover Big Local put 25,000 a year in for two years – and then the last year, we put 5000 in, because our funds are starting to diminish – to employ a person to work with partnerships with the local tourism organisations, but largely also to work with the with the cruise industry, because we have cruise liners coming to Dover as well. But again, they put the people on coaches or did, and ship them off to Canterbury, see the cathedral and all everything’s Canterbury. They don’t stop in Dover. You know, there’s so much. They need to know Dover exists, and what there is to see at an early stage in their in their journey. But we’ve also had a really fruitful partnership with English Heritage, National Trust, because National Trust look after the White Cliffs, a number of the Dover Marina Hotel, which is the massive, big hotel on seafront. Out of this has come a really good electric and non electric bike hire scheme, so there are now hubs all over Dover, where you can pick up an electric bike and drop it off. And the thinking behind that is that Dover has massive hills. 

Chris Allen

And so was this, was this stuff coming out of really out your conversations, and your partnership working other communication, rather than the money? 

Anita Luckett

It was from conversations about what the barriers were. And it’s been a really good result. We’ve seen a significant increase in cruise stopovers, and it had a very good upward kinda… 

Chris Allen

And how did that change the kind of image of Dover Big Local, you know? Because you’re working here with some pretty big businesses, small businesses, the local authority as well. Were you becoming the kind of go to place in order to get this kind of thinking in place, and to get that capacity? 

Anita Luckett

We’ve found ourselves being consulted on what people in the town think, and particularly what people who have challenges might need. And think it’s been encouraging to be asked to give what we think the and what we can find out from focus group. It’s useful because it’s given people who might not have originally had a voice a chance to tell us what they think. We’ve been able to go back out to our groups and say, ​“Well, this is planned. What do you think about that?” 

Chris Allen

Will that continue do you think, as you go beyond Big Local into your kind of legacy stage, that kind of thinking? 

Anita Luckett

Yeah, and that’s that’s very useful. We have an annual event at which we pretty much ask the same questions every year, as well as asking for people’s free responses, because it allows us to take temperature of what the change is. 

Chris Allen

So you were there at the beginning. You have done seven years as a chair. And your reflections on that journey from where you started to where you ended up, what’s been your kind of reflection? Is it, you know, did you achieve what you wanted? Or actually what you wanted originally wasn’t what you, what was the right thing to achieve? Were lessons learned? 

Anita Luckett

I think we’ve certainly, we’ve made a big difference. The employment training that we’re doing is very well received, and it occupies a unique space in that people coming to it are recommended to it from the job centre, but they’re not required to come. We’re able to offer a lot of digital support, which we’re finding, particularly with older people who are being asked to remain in employment, who maybe don’t have digital skills. That’s useful. Certainly, it’s creating a sense of community, and has continued to do so for people who might be marginalised. So we have people who come to peer groups, people who come to various things that we do. And it it’s provided some affordable things for families from our more challenged, economically challenged areas to do in the summer holidays. So for instance, we’ve run a series events on the Roman lawn, which is a big green area that they can’t build on because it has half a Roman fort underneath it. And we’ve run summer activities on there for a number of years now, and we’ve had mums come in and say, ​“I don’t know what I’d have done with the kids without this, because two days a week there’s been something free we can bring them to that they really love. What would we have done? We’d have been stuck indoors.” 

Chris Allen

You’ve given a lot of years of support to this, and you know what, what difference has it made you personally? This is this, this kind of involvement over such long periods of time, your role as chair, the different things you’ve specialised in as well, has an impact on your own personal life. You know, are you going to carry on doing stuff? Or you think, no, I need a lay down now. 

Anita Luckett

Oh, it’s a challenge. It’s been a delight to help people. It’s been rewarding when you see people who’ve been very positively impacted. We’ve had a number of people who’ve come to us recovering from difficult difficulties in their lives, who wouldn’t have been able to go into employment, who are now either employed with us, or are able to take on part time jobs and then full time jobs, and we see them develop. And if they’ve not developed in in being able to take on a job, because for some people, that’s just not possible, in which some government policies really worry, then at least we’re seeing them develop socially and coming out of their shells a little bit, and having something to come in for, having something to say ​“well, Tuesday there’s that group, I’m going to go to that.” rather than perhaps being isolated for the whole week and not having anything to go out for, or feeling a bit friendless. You know, so all those things are very worthwhile. 

Chris Allen

And you feel personally, I was gonna say, you know, I want, I want you to recognise in yourself, I suppose that the what you’ve given to this. 

Anita Luckett

That’s that’s been a worthwhile use of my time, if that makes sense. Anybody serving on a committee, like like a local, like a Big Local committee, has to be wary of is that the demand for your time can outstrip your ability to deliver. And if you’re self employed, you have to sometimes get a little bit stubborn and diffident about that, because it can start to impact your own income. We brought in employees. We deliberately included in our bid a manager and a manager’s assistant to take on some of the roles that have been done on a voluntary basis. Because as you start to look at how you’re going to continue beyond Big Local funding, which is generous and is able to be used very freely, to something that’s most prescriptive, the delivery of that is more time consuming and isn’t something that you could necessarily do on a wholly voluntary basis. When you move in something like Reaching Communities [a National Lottery Community Fund programme], you have to specify project work. You’re not in a position to grant fund people anymore. So there’s a whole change of thinking that has to be communicated to the people that you work with. So part of the way that people thought about Dover Big Local in the past was, ​“Oh, Dover Big Local, they do great things, but they away money.” 

Chris Allen

Right?

Anita Luckett

And so as we came to the end of our Dover Big Local money, and in the last six months, it was almost entirely focused on supporting our core costs while we got our Reach Communities bid hopefully through. We had to communicate to people that actually, that’s not how it’s going to be in the future, we’ll be directly delivering, rather than giving money to you to deliver things. And lovely as it’s been to work with you, we’ll want to continue to work with you, but we can’t give you any dosh anymore. 

Chris Allen

And that’s probably one of the, one of the misconceptions people had a Big Local right through, you know, was it’s a grant programme. No, it’s not. It’s a capacity building programme. And you you’ve clearly, you know, built capacity in so many different ways. You know, easy money from Big Local because it was much more accessible, and all the things you have to jump through for other areas. So, so perhaps organisations still have some lessons to learn in self-supporting themselves, you know, and it can work in a partnership across a spectrum of different organisations, but still got some capacity to learn themselves, perhaps there? 

Anita Luckett

The development of our CIC predated the end of our lottery funding, but at the same time, we started to realise that we could start to build a reputation for the CIC before we ran out of lottery money. And that’s actually been a good move, and I’d recommend it to other areas, because I think that hugely contributed to our success of getting Reaching Communities funding. 

Chris Allen

That’s Anita Luckett of Dover Big Local. Certainly an area Kirsten that has not been daunted by the biggest challenges around employment, business and regeneration. 

Kirsten Sinclair

Dover is one of our interesting Big Locals because of where it’s located, right in the centre of town. And it’s been amazing to see how much they have grown and progressed over the Big Local programme. So yeah. And as ever there is more information in the show notes. 

Chris Allen

Indeed there is. And if you want to go there, you’ll find out all that information and also part of their legacy as well as they’re moving forward, there’s more information there too. And Kirsten and I look forward to joining us next time on the Community Power Podcast, brought to you by Local Trust, discovering what happens when you give local people the power, the money and the assets to make a difference to their neighbourhoods.