Community Pride Podcast Episode 2 - What does pride in community power look like?

Kayla Jones 00:00

The other day, a notification popped up on my phone that its storage was almost full. I was trying to take another photo of my dog but going through and trying to figure out what to delete, I realised I had hundreds of photos and videos of him back from when he was a puppy, from the many walks he’s been on, and a slew of almost identical snaps of him sitting adorably on the couch. For so many of us, taking pictures regularly is second nature now. Our phones or cameras are filled with our key memories, a string of events and decisions that shape who we are, some good and some bad, that together are a collage of what we call life. If we were then asked to edit down our life to just a few 10-minute videos, it would feel almost impossible, and that’s just how Anne felt about Chinbrook Big Local. After 10 years of community experiences, collaborations, and events, they decided to try and capture it all in a 10-minute video to commemorate their journey as a Big Local area.

Resident 1 01:02

I think it’s really easy to move to an area, especially if you move into an estate and you don’t know people and think there isn’t a community where actually there really is. 

Resident 2 01:10

Well, I’ve been living in the area for 25 plus years, big group of older people who have retired. 

Resident 3 01:18

I’ve lived here a long time, about 54 years. 

Resident 4 01:20

I was a dinner lady for 19 years over the school. 

Resident 1 01:23

But there’s also lots of young families.

Resident 5 01:26

It’s a nice place to live.

Resident 1 01:27

ChART was given money by the National Lottery Big Local scheme. It was a great opportunity for people to begin to think, what did they want? And the whole premise of the organisation was that it was resident-led. The community was given this incredible resource, provided it was the community and the people, and the residents who decided what to do. 

Kayla Jones 01:56

In August of 2024, Chinbrook had its final community event as a Big Local area. Residents went to watch the video that a media studio carefully crafted. As Anne spoke to me, I could tell the experience was probably bittersweet. I have noticed a reoccurring theme as I’ve interviewed people and visited various Big Local areas, reflection on the past and hope for the future mixed together. As many of the Big Local areas near the end of their journeys, there’s a poignant sense of finality paired with the meaningful act of sharing a decade’s worth of experiences. Back in our first episode, we explored Big Local as a programme and how different areas express their community pride through unique journeys. Each Big Local area was given £1.15 million to allocate towards addressing the specific needs and aspirations of their area. Unlike many charitable funding programmes, which often come with strict guidelines on how funds must be spent, Big Local allowed communities greater flexibility. 

While structured funding can benefit communities, it can also limit their ability to address unique, localised needs. Years of research into neighbourhood regeneration has revealed that often, residents are the ones best equipped to determine what works for their area. They live, work, and socialise there, after all, giving them an intimate understanding of their community’s needs. Resident-led decision-making has the potential to drive meaningful change and build community power, although this doesn’t mean the process is always smooth sailing. Just like the photos in our phones, documenting the highs and lows of life, not all resident-led initiatives are easy, drama-free, or traditionally successful. But for many Big Local areas, the journey is worth it, leading to a more empowered and connected community ready to shape its future. I’m your host, Kayla Jones. Join me as we explore pride and community power for Big Local communities on the Community Pride podcast.

Anne 04:05

So I’m Anne Slater, and I’m connected with ChART Big Local, which stands for Chinbrook Action Residents’ Team. And that’s our group, Chinbrook, being the area that we’re based in. I first got involved right near the beginning, when they were still looking at what everybody felt was important for the area, and asking questions and so on. It’s been much bigger, I think, than I first anticipated. But that’s how it goes, really.

Kayla Jones 04:33

That’s Anne, the Community Manager for Chinbrook Big Local, which is an area in south-east London, in the Lewisham Borough. Like many British afternoons, we got started on our interview right after a healthy lamentation over the overcast weather for this rainy day in September 2024.

Anne 04:51

Chinbrook is kind of tucked away — bottom south-east corner of Lewisham borough. You know, there’s quite a few people over the years have sort of said to me ​‘Oh, we’re the forgotten corner’. You know, we feel a little bit kind of out on a limb. Bromley borough and Greenwich borough are kind of adjoining us.

Kayla Jones 05:08

The ​‘forgotten area of Chinbrook’, as Anne has heard it called, is an area of pre-1930s terrace houses that are a mixture of owner-occupied, social housing, and privately rented housing, and two big blocks of flats, where residents sometimes feel overlooked compared to other parts of London’s metropolis.

Anne 05:28

You know, when you look at the statistics about the area, you realise what a high area of need there is. A lot of people on disability benefits, and compared with other parts of London, or even other parts of Lewisham, really high levels of disability, unemployment, kids in poverty. It’s an area that hasn’t had much, you know, funding over the which is what how the Big Local works, isn’t it? The idea is to put money into places that are in need but haven’t had kind of much additional funding and let people sort of think about what they want to do with it.

Kayla Jones 06:04

Chinbrook is a diverse community of long-term residents and newcomers from across the world. It has a local school, a church, a few shops, and a local youth club building that had been abandoned when Chinbrook first began. The ChART group were keen to find a space where locals could meet and discuss their next steps on how best to spend the £1.15 million that had been awarded to the area. 

Anne 06:26

There was an old youth club building that was abandoned when ChART first started up. It was out of action, but there’s a group that have managed to get it going again, getting it up and running. And then there’s the W. Grace Centre, which is the community centre that ChART’s been using right from the beginning. You know, there aren’t many, there’s no cafes in the area. There’s some bus service, but it’s kind of a little bit out on the corner. There’s a few little local shops at the edge of the area. And quite often, you know, when we were first doing events, you know, you would say, well, we’re going to be running it from the community centre. And like, Where was that? You know, nobody knew where it was. It’s kind of down a dead-end road, so it’s not, kind of, like right in your face, sort of there, so people didn’t know it. So that’s been a huge difference. It’s the usual thing in London these days, people can live quite near other people, but just don’t make contact, you know.

Kayla Jones 07:18

For some residents, this lack of connection in the area has resulted in a lack of knowledge on where to access local resources or inquire about community advocacy, such as housing improvements. Professor Sarah Pearson is a researcher at Sheffield Hallam University and has explored the challenges facing small communities like Chinbrook over the last two decades. Her research looked at initiatives such as the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal, which was a strategy launched in 2001. This strategy aimed to improve some of the most disadvantaged areas in Britain through targeting neighbourhoods based on need, increased funding, better local coordination, a stronger role for communities and a long-term, comprehensive approach. These aspects were evaluated alongside residents’ perceptions of their local area. While some areas had had investment in the past, not all of those areas felt as if the way they were being delivered was wholly beneficial for communities or address the actual needs of local residents. 

Sarah Pearson 08:23

Very local areas within the country, which have disproportionately high levels of poverty and disadvantage, and that those are persistent challenges facing some of those areas. And actually, what we needed despite investment you know, we’d had a number of investment programmes. We’d had a number of area-based regeneration initiatives, but they weren’t necessarily — so the benefits of those programmes weren’t necessarily being felt within those very disadvantaged communities. So there was an acknowledgement within the New Labour government at that time that what we needed was a programme which specifically addressed the challenges that those communities were facing. 

Kayla Jones 09:00

Every Big Local community has unique needs in their area, and no funding was one size fits all. To determine where to allocate funding many Big Local areas begin with surveys, community meetings, or online polls to collaborate on where to prioritise their funding. Chinbrook decided to bring a consultant who helped them navigate their Big Local journey.

Anne 09:25

So that, I mean, the consultations were very important, you know, sort of, kind of having time to make sure we spoke to people. We got people sort of filling in forms at the school, at the other centres, at the seniors at the, you know, annual Grove Park carnival. We made sure that that was a time we could talk to people. And that was really important. I think I felt because I kind of worried that we were quite a small group. The actual group that met, you know, monthly, was quite a small group, but having that kind of backup of, okay, this is what people are saying, you know, we need.

Kayla Jones 09:55

While the funding was an exciting prospect, it was also a huge responsibility — to try and work out what local areas wanted, a challenge that has never gone away for all Big Local communities. However, like Chinbrook, as more residents got involved, the more needs were able to be identified, even in small ways. Chinbrook set about developing projects across the community, such as combating social isolation through coffee mornings and a carers’ club, working together with primary schools to create extracurricular activities, and language programs benefiting new residents to the area. For some of these initiatives, that prompted residents to get more involved in their local area.

Anne 10:36

We had people who came to English as a Second Language class that we well, some people have gone on to get work out in the big world kind of thing. They have actually gone on to sort of the volunteering roles in ChART. So one of them is now a regular volunteer with the food bank. You know, others have gone on to other, other volunteering roles. So that’s quite interesting. You know, just getting that confidence that you can communicate better and then being able to go out and make your contribution as well. That’s really very exciting to see.

Kayla Jones 10:59

This initial involvement for some residents has snowballed into long-term volunteering with ChART or to find employment opportunities locally through their experiences.

Anne 11:18

So I’m thinking about one person who kind of started off, came along to the walking group, which is just to sort of like a gentle walk through the park, then went on to volunteer at the food bank, lead the walking group for a while. She’s now looking after the Thursday morning coffee morning group, you know, having the keys for that. She’s done masses of sort of online training to try and, you know, sort of make sure she’s kind of got skills, and this is somebody who’s got very little formal education, and came very, kind of quite nervous and unsure of herself, and the confidence that she’s grown. So that kind of volunteer, that sort of way that she’s been enabled, and that the kind of confidence she has in herself, really, the things that she can do and the way that she can contribute is huge.

Kayla Jones 12:03

For many Big Local areas, more resident involvement had a two-pronged benefit, communally and individually. The benefit of the community, having an active resident involved in helping improve their local area and the resident’s benefit of gaining experience and skill building. This is also what Professor Pearson discovered through her research.

Sarah Pearson 12:26

What we did find, particularly when we looked at New Deal for Communities, is that there’s a direct correlation between levels of community engagement and improved outcomes. So put very simply, the more people are engaged within a community in community-led regeneration, the better the outcomes for that area are. There’s also a very strong correlation between improved outcomes for those people who are involved. Within the New Deal for Communities’ neighbourhoods, we looked at the people who were involved in community-led partnerships on boards who were delivering projects, who were benefiting from projects, and they also had improved outcomes, so people who directly were participating in community-led initiatives benefit directly in terms of that activity.

Kayla Jones 13:11

For Big Local as a programme, some communities prioritise large projects such as sports centres or playgrounds, which required a significant portion of their funding. In contrast, communities like Chinbrook spread their funding across a variety of initiatives, including a food bank, homework clubs and schools, IT sessions, skill development programmes, and financial advice workshops.

Anne 13:35

We paid for another organisation to come and so people made appointments to see the finance advisor. I think they sort of developed a sense of, it was a place that you could come and be listened to, and maybe you couldn’t always get all your questions answered, or your situation, your problems answered. Like, quite often there were housing problems, you know, but staff were able to kind of direct people to the person that they should speak to. I think that’s been empowering. And I’m a bit worried that that’s one of the aspects that may — because there’s not the sort of staff there to do that. And I know people really felt the value of having somebody who just listened to them, really, but it was often a case of the advisor actually helping them fill in the form, or making the phone call for them, because people felt so disempowered that they didn’t know how to even begin, you know, and maybe if English wasn’t your first language as well, you were sort of worried about making a phone call and, you know, having an official vicious response or something. And so that stuff has been huge, really, for people.

Kayla Jones 14:37

Community power can begin with individuals feeling knowledgeable about the needs of their area and equipped with the experience and skills to respond. Rachel, the Chief Operating Officer of Local Trust, has certainly found this through her many visits to Big Local communities across England.

Rachel Rowney 14:58

So we think there’s been a huge shift in the individuals, particularly those who have been in partnerships for a long time, and the ability to, I think, craft a slightly different CV because of what they’ve done and their experiences around that. But I think you’ve also seen in the activities and the projects that are funded that people benefit directly from that training course, that summer programme, that one-to-one support that they had from the Citizens Advice Bureau or Age Concern, and the partners of Big Local have been able to bring in and support them.

Kayla Jones 15:31

For some Big Local communities, this looked like gaining the knowledge on how to campaign for affordable housing, reaching out to local councillors, or figuring out ways to use their Big Local budget to hire professionals who could advocate on their behalf to large stakeholders. For instance, Ramsey, a Big Local area in Cambridgeshire that was having difficulties with public transport. Some residents were walking a 24-mile round trip due to the lack of transportation. 

Rachel Rowney 16:03

I think the Ramsey bus project is one of those where they realised that actually a million pounds wasn’t going to buy a new bus service, and that wasn’t a long-term solution. And they had looked at other schemes like moped schemes, where you rent a moped and you take it out. But I think they realised the challenge was really around the public infrastructure of that place, and economically, it just wasn’t viable for the bus service to carry on. But their ability, I think, to influence and bring together a group of stakeholders to really change the bus service was really, I think, quite – it wasn’t just challenging, but I think the foresight and the energy that that took to bring together and collaborate in that way was really special.

Kayla Jones 16:56

Big Local has allowed for many communities to establish a sense of collaboration in meetings, both online and in person, and utilise communal spaces to share knowledge or do long-term planning for the future.

Rachel Rowney 17:09

So I think there’s that, I think where you’ve got assets and you’ve got places to meet, like community centres and parks, it’s really fostered a focal point for a community where they can bring together and organise themselves in a way which they just weren’t able to before and that has led, I think, to all sorts of things, and not just activities, but a real sense of pride in their place and what they can do as a collective.

Kayla Jones 17:34

Professor Pearson found the communities developing knowledge on how the voluntary sector works allowed them to feel more equipped on how to make the next steps to improve their local area.

Sarah Pearson 17:45

There are some real challenges in terms of the power dynamics, I think, between, you know, sort of third sector and community-led partnerships and public sector organisations, it works better when there’s an opportunity for both communities and public sector organisations to have that kind of space to learn about each other and to learn about how each other works, and to learn about where the opportunities for working together collaboratively in a very successful way are.

Kayla Jones 18:13

Since the beginning, one of Local Trust’s primary goals has been to empower Big Local communities to take a resident-led approach, fostering an environment where steering groups and committees could collaborate and dedicate their efforts to unique projects tailored to their local needs. For some communities, this flexible funding model was unfamiliar and occasionally met with skepticism, requiring time to build trust and understanding.

Rachel Rowney 18:42

What we found was a lot of distrust, distrust in us, other funders and stakeholders generally, because they had felt that they had been promised things in the past and they hadn’t happened, or they were promised that it was community led, or that residents would have a say, and then when it came down to it they didn’t, or they didn’t feel that they did. And so, for us, it was really important, very early on, to establish, suppose, a sense that residents were truly in the lead: community power was really important. And not just say that but be mindful about the language we were using and how we engaged in those places. Because I think for us, it came from a fundamental belief that residents know best in their area. They live there. In a lot of cases, people grew up there, their parents grew up there, their grandparents lived there. It’s generational, and so they have a really deep understanding of that place. And for us, being able to draw that out and to trust them to deliver that.

Kayla Jones 19:43

I asked Anne about Chinbrook’s experience as a Big Local area, some of the triumphs and also some of the challenges. She spoke to me of the ways that people had built up lasting connections through events such as crafting and yoga, and helped provide for families in times of need, like COVID, and created experiences like group days out to combat isolation for the elderly. She also spoke to me about the fact that even though Big Local funding has allowed the area to start these initiatives, funding is not a fix-all for Chinbrook, there are some initiatives she feels worried about being able to find the funding to continue on. And at times, locals can still feel despondent about their local area. Still, Anne believes that Chinbrook’s experience has planted a seed in the community to feel more empowered going forward, and for some of the programmes, such as the local food bank, to be a lasting presence in Lewisham.

Anne 20:41

Local Trust have done and offered an awful lot of sort of training courses and things like that. I’ve done a few bits and pieces over the years, but certainly we’ve been able to enable people to sort of do various courses. And some other people have been on Big Local things as well. So, there’s a lot of people that know that they should speak to the local councillor. I wouldn’t say that politically, there’s a sort of a huge kind of groundswell now of kind of, you know, we’re going to make this change, we’re going to do this. To a certain extent, maybe. I mean, very locally, I think, yes. So that people say, for instance, you know, we’ve now got the volunteer team who manage the food bank, and they are, you know, very influential within that small sort of setup, you know, that has a huge knock on effect, obviously, for the area. But there’s not a sort of, I wouldn’t say it’s transformed people’s feeling…. hopefully what it does, has done is make people feel that it’s not the forgotten corner so much. You know, we’ve been able to achieve all these things, and in our little patch of Lewisham.

Kayla Jones 21:41

A phrase keeps coming to mind as I learn more about community power and Big Local communities, knowledge is power. You might have heard it before. Through this journey, I kept seeing that while the funding has certainly made a huge impact, communities having the power to decide where to invest their funding has resulted in many people becoming more knowledgeable. That knowledge about how to get involved in local politics and where to seek out external funding leads to knowing about the tools and training to continue programmes or learning useful employable skills for improving careers. Big Local funding has helped open community centres, build play parks and plant a seed for ongoing programmes. But it’s the knowledge that many individuals have gained and the collaboration that will empower them to enact change for the future. Professor Pearson believes that it is this empowerment that will sustain communities to continue this work in disadvantaged areas.

Sarah Pearson 22:43

I think because Big Local has had such a strong emphasis on community empowerment and building capacity within communities, and providing communities with, you know, sort of skills and capabilities, and focusing on community assets in the way that we’ve talked about, I think it’s exactly that, it’s that more sustained benefit. So you know, those things are not going to go away. Those things will continue to be in the community. And we would expect that there will be kind of ongoing benefits to the community, just in terms of being able to access future funding, having those relationships, having that capacity within the community. Whereas, when we’ve seen more traditional programmes, which perhaps have been led by public sector organisations, or where there’s been less emphasis on community empowerment, that’s much less likely to happen. The funding quite often goes into physical regeneration. So you know, new stuff, building new buildings, doing up neighbourhoods and so on. But it doesn’t have that kind of corollary of, well, okay, we need to, we need to empower local people, and we need to provide local people with the skills to continue to deliver benefits for disadvantaged neighbourhoods, because ultimately, when all the money has gone, it’s the people that are still there.

Kayla Jones 24:05

Every Big Local community I’ve spoken to has learned so much through their Big Local journey. They look back on decisions and wish they could have done them differently, see projects they think they should have had more time to invest in, or think of directions that they could have gone with their funding. But for many, those decisions are a huge part of the lessons they learned. What has been important for so many Big Local areas is that resident-led decision making has helped pave the future for communities, whether that be in gaining valuable skills to seek for their funding in the future, building bridges for communicating to local power holders and politicians, or leading a new generation to continue the valuable work that’s being done in Big Local communities. For communities like Chinbrook, the challenges, disagreements, mistakes and hurdles are all a chance to grow, change and learn as a community. Many communities have expressed just how much Big Local funding has had an impact in their area. Sometimes, when we think of funding for communities, we envision some of the tangible things, like sports centres, community buildings or equipment, material things, something we can see in front of us. And while those projects absolutely have made a difference to so many communities, overwhelmingly, what I also hear from them about the ways Big Local funding has brought about changes that are intangible to locals, like confidence, connection and empowerment. Just like the hundreds of photos many of us hold on our phones, many of them never see the light of day, unfiltered and unedited, these changes are still a huge part of our lives. So many of the decisions that big local communities have made have helped residents carve a future for their area with knowledge and confidence to make an impact in their communities and advocate for change. The knowledge they now have can empower them moving forward. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Community Pride podcast. For more information and resources on community power and Big Local as a programme, go to learningfrombiglocal.org.uk