Objectives
This section focuses on longer-term programmes, establishing a long term strategy, and finally renewal and new build. It builds on the previous section’s questions and resources on creating neighbourhood plans. The section is divided into three parts, plus self-assessment questionnaire at the end:
- Establishing long term programmes
- Tenant management and ownership
- Infrastructure renewal and new build
- Self-assessment questionnaire.
Establishing long term programmes
Successful placemakers establish partnerships with other providers and work closely with tenants to create genuine empowerment. Those with a longer track record on an estate speak of the need to have a presence in communities – in consistent, stable and positive ways. Those relationships need to be embedded within practical frameworks for the longer term.
Examples of Long term programmes have included,
- Overcoming local problems such as unemployment and lack of activity for young people
- Sustainability of tenancies
- Tenure neutral approaches to common problems – regardless of who is legally responsible it’s in the provider’s interest to get it cleared
- Building a long term relationship with Aboriginal elders and other diverse communities and promote cultural healing
Castle Vale – The Housing Provider as Community Anchor
Castle Vale in Birmingham shows what long-term placemaking looks like when a housing provider takes on an anchor role in its community. Managed by the Pioneer Group, the estate’s journey began with a legally binding Stock Transfer Agreement in 2004. This set clear promises to tenants and to the whole neighbourhood, forming the foundation for trust, shared ownership and lasting partnership.
Over more than twenty years, Pioneer has built a network of anchor organisations that connect housing, services and local people. The housing provider owns and manages most of the assets on the estate and uses them to support wider community goals such as safety, employment and wellbeing.
Key features of the model include:
- Formal partnerships: All main public services – police, health, schools and council – work together through a Neighbourhood Partnership Board with a long-term neighbourhood plan. This keeps agencies aligned and helps them respond jointly to local priorities
- Resident-led governance: Tenants have a majority on the housing board and take part in scrutiny panels and resident groups. Placemaking is built into every level of planning and decision-making
- Local services and enterprises: Merlin Ventures runs affordable nurseries and childcare; Spitfire Advice and Support provides debt and welfare advice. These help residents into work and strengthen household resilience
- Community endowment: The Castle Vale Endowment Trust, set up in 2005 with an £8 million fund, continues to invest in projects that improve education, employment, safety, health and the local environment
- Ongoing neighbourhood planning: The Neighbourhood Plan is reviewed and renewed regularly so that partners and residents can adapt to new challenges such as austerity, Covid-19 or cost-of-living pressures.
Establishing long term programmes: a quick checklist
The Placemaking project sets out here five quick questions to help community housing providers gauge whether they are asking the right questions of themselves when approaching longer term programmes. The questions should help providers to check whether they are doing all they can in the mature stages of placemaking.
Download the Self-assessmentTenant management and ownership
Some providers have shared power and responsibility with tenants through various types of co-governance structure.
One case study, Bron Afon, South Wales, UK is itself structured as a mutual, with any local person (tenant
or otherwise) able to become a member.
The England-based National Federation of Tenant Management Organisations has more than 130 tenant led co-ops, management boards and other tenant-led organisations in membership. It is the umbrella organisation for such groups and offers training and good practice. Three NFTMO member organisations have participated in the Placemaking project.
Tips
- Providers should allow tenants into the driving seat whenever possible and whenever they are ready. Empower tenants to take on leadership roles at all levels
- Providers should consider appropriate power-sharing structures that promote co-governance with tenants
- Where community assets are threatened, providers must find a way to support them
- Providers should invest in wider community initiatives, drawing on partnerships to lever in resources.
Tenant management and ownership: a quick checklist
The Placemaking project sets out here five quick questions to help community housing providers gauge whether they are asking the right questions of themselves when approaching power sharing structures. The questions should help providers to check whether they are doing all they can in the mature stages of placemaking.
Download the Self-assessmentInfrastructure renewal and new build
Some providers have helped to empower tenants through the process of physical change on their estates, including new build. Tenants have become involved in plans for the area as a whole, and their
own homes, with some taking leadership roles through that process. Broader community initiatives can
flow from this steady level of engagement.
In one case, Castle Vale, Birmingham, UK, when community assets were threatened by austerity in the public finances, the strengthened community was enabled and supported to take them on and keep them flourishing.
One provider’s Inspiring Future Leaders training programme seeks to empower and support local people in setting up facilities such as food hubs, a library of community stories and community photography.
Renewal and new build: a quick checklist
The Placemaking project sets out here five quick questions to help community housing providers gauge whether they are asking the right questions of themselves when approaching renewal of the physical environment. The questions should help providers to check whether they are doing all they can in the mature stages of placemaking.
Download the Self-assessmentResources
Stage 5 Self-Assessment
This is a template which you can use to manage your community’s assessment for Stage 5 Building for the Long Term placemaking practices and track your improvement.
