Improving and building neighbourhood facilities are hugely significant undertakings, both in terms of time and money. The key to successful projects is being able to act as the client – defining what you want, selecting the right professionals, making decisions when needed, and having a firm grip on timetables and money. Community organisations and groups often won’t have these skills by professional training so it is important to support them in this. Indeed, many of the large scale mainstream bodies can often under-resource the client and the project management side of capital building facilities.
In EC1, the NDC delivery team encouraged applicants to take seriously their role as clients – staged and transparent processes in terms of design decisions, the appointment of specialist project managers, visits to other facilities, establishing resident panels or groups to name just a few techniques that were used. This is more important than ever given the drive towards more community assets development and ownership in the Localism bill.
