Welcome to the Notes on a Neighbourhood online practice guide. The aim of the guide is to draw together some of the key principles that we believe are essential for effective practice in neighbourhood regeneration and renewal. It is based on Renaisi’s experience of delivering a large number of neighbourhood based regeneration programmes across London over the past 13 years – particularly our work in EC1 South Islington which benefited from a 10 year New Deal for Communities programme between 2001 and 2011.
The guide is aimed at anyone interested in driving improvements in their neighbourhoods including community groups, housing officers, planners, neighbourhood managers, tenants and residents associations etc.
Obviously the realities of neighbourhood regeneration and renewal are quite different today. There is no framework for national regeneration nor large scale renewal programmes such as the New Deal. They have been replaced with programmes that are smaller in scale and driven and delivered directly by communities themselves including Big Local, Community Organisers and Community First.
However we believe to lose sight of the lessons from the past 10 years would be misguided. There are considerable lessons that we should learn from and apply in order to create the right conditions for communities to create sustainable change in their neighbourhoods.
This guide summarise the key lessons that we have taken from EC1 New Deal for Communities (EC1 NDC). It is intended to be short and accessible with the ability for you to dip in and out of each section. The sections below are structured around what we see as the key building blocks of successful neighbourhood working – high quality services, facilities and public realm, all effectively managed and planned with opportunities and support for community involvement.
We want to turn this into a comprehensive – yet accessible – online resource for communities who are embarking on neighbourhood renewal programmes. If you have any comments or suggestions for further inclusions or if you want to challenge some of our assertions, then please do contact us on d.lightbown@renaisi.com on 0207 033 2614. The guide was written by Kirby Swales, Director of Renaisi with contributions from Jessica Bolsin, John Hitchin and Donna Lightbown.
/ Planning and managing long-term change
- Start with plan making: do it early and get buy in from community and partners
- Understand the past: the long range past can tell you more than the last few years
- Future proof your plans: an outline ‘succession’ plan should be in place early
- Balance needs and opportunities: capitalise on local institutions, economies, and connections
- Maximise outcomes by working holistically: incorporate community development and social enterprise throughout
- Aim for a true sense of partnership: it is not about meetings
- Think about decision making structures: establish and develop transparent and sustainable governance mechanisms
/ Improving Services
- Understand your scale: Focus on what can be achieved at the neighbourhood level, whilst not forgetting about links to broader frameworks
- Remember that revenue grants are not core funds: focus on innovation and infrastructure rather than boosting capacity
- Build connections through services: think about the secondary impact on social capital
- Focus on prevention: early action approaches work best at the neighbourhood level
- Encourage ‘cross-area’ partnerships: get providers working together and out of their ‘centres’
- Improve take-up and access: Use the power of local networks and intelligence
- Focus on individuals: unlocking talent and confidence should be the goal
- Measure impact: Establish systems to know if service improvements are working
/ Improving Facilities
- Link capital investment to service change: It’s more about service change than bricks and mortar
- Encourage co-location and rationalisation: Think about who would make good neighbours, and how to support area not service needs
- Think about the end of a grant cycle: Include an enterprising/income-generating element in centres
- Make the community the client: Support involvement in the process, so views translate to realities
- Build-in long-term flexibility and adaptability: what will the facility be and do tomorrow
- Don’t expect facilities to do it all from day one: manage expectations and provide support at the start
- Protect the benefits to the local community: lock asset holders to the original vision in the longer term plan
/ Improving the Public Realm
- Have a whole neighbourhood focus: think long term and across streets, parks and estates in your plans
- Invest in plans: short term investments in good plans can allow for longer term investment strategies
- Remember how disabling fear can be in communities: work to design out crime and ensure natural surveillance
- Get people walking – and stopping: encourage walking routes, and places to stop and chat
- Focus on quality: high quality materials encourage long term uses
- Design has to be future-proof: use design principles creatively, but respect the need for maintenance
- Build multilateral relationships around places: there a broad number of users of spaces and change should involve them all
- Encourage pride: use a combination of small identities and larger projects
- Ensure playful usages: formal and informal spaces to encourage play
/ Encouraging Community Involvement and Action
- Remember who you’re talking to: focus on the importance of effective communications
- Recognise and celebrate those already involved: local people have been doing this much longer than your programme
- Create something for people to get involved in: networks build around interests, not for their own sake
- Engage through culture and creativity: a positive start to the conversation – and an opportunity for people to take it wherever they want
- Give people the skills and confidence to take part: encourage long term participation and involvement
- Use small pots of money effectively: providing small grant funds to support organisations to deliver programme outcomes
