Mill Hill & Wensley Fold, Blackburn, Blackburn with Darwen

• People did not feel involved in the area.
• A feeling that nothing really happened in the area
• Concerns about the housing and the living environment
• A key barrier to accessing community resources related to social relationships e.g. experiencing anxiety about going to new places or events when lacking someone else to go with.

In response to demands from the LOG, one very rapid review of evidence was completed on the topic of ‘buddying as a way of increasing access to community resources’.

Following on from these activities, the LOG produced an action plan which focussed on:

1. governance – involving residents in decision making and increasing levels of public involvement in decisions about what happens in the area;
2. housing and the living environment – improving the area and linking in with a new regeneration programme;
3. social connectedness – bringing communities and residents together; and,
4. funding – attracting new resources to support local activities.

Improving the local environment

Community clean-ups

Two community clean-ups were organised in May 2018 and October 2018. The local authority environmental team provided litter-picking equipment, waste bags and access to the recycling centre. Skips were provided by Together Housing, a social housing provider.

Following on from these community clean-ups linked to the 2018 ‘Your Community Your Call’, Resident Advisers and organisational stakeholders explored how they could develop a systems-based approach to address littering and fly tipping.

Conversations with the local authority waste team, a local councillor and other stakeholders in the area prompted two weeks of action, termed a ‘love bombing campaign’, between the 14th and 28th of February 2019. A range of stakeholders from local services and businesses, including Keep Blackburn Tidy, came together to create visible action and interest in the area.

Activities included:

1. A visual audit of litter and fly tipping completed both before and after actions, by 6th form students from St Wilfrid’s school;
2. Local COREN facilitator attended a school assembly to show the effects of littering;
3. Collaborative clean ups with partner agencies and local businesses (including the public health team, Go Outdoors, Keep Blackburn Tidy litter pickers, local councillors, Together Housing and neighbourhood team);
4. Assessment of empty properties in the area by the Regeneration Team;
5. Cutting back overgrown bushes (where needles and rubbish was being dumped);
6. Five skips being provided for collection of bulky waste – funded by Together Housing and,
7. A local councillor linking in with Keep Blackburn Tidy to promote activity on their Facebook page and to encourage others to get involved As part of this effort, three talks were held at local primary and secondary schools on the topic of waste, litter and recycling. One local primary school was involved in a litter pick during the love bombing fortnight.

The Local Oversight Group took a holistic approach to improving connections and involvement in the area by bringing together relevant system actors. In the summer of 2018, residents and other stakeholders worked together to plan and hold a summer street event. The purpose was to get residents connecting with other residents and to find out about the social opportunities available in the area. This led to funding being secured from the local CVS to support a second street event in the following summer of 2019. A range of organisations used the event as an opportunity to promote their services to the community. Approximately 130 people were estimated to take part in these street events.

The NRP helped draw attention to an area that had not received any specific local authority input or interventions in the past. The NRP generated learning and new alliances with the housing regeneration team which worked on the planned regeneration for one of the estates in the neighbourhood. For professionals, this learning was about involving residents in the next phase of consultations and supporting them to shape developments. Due to the NRP coming to an end, Residents Advisers were not directly involved in the consultations in the lifetime of the NRP but the links had been made and information was shared by professionals with the Resident Advisors who could then inform other residents about the development of the project.

Resident Advisers formed a formally constituted group that could enable them to access funding to support activity in the local area based on the needs and interests of the local community.

The Team

Dilwara Ali – COREN Facilitator

Tinta Ali – Resident Adviser

AbdulRahman Fadul – Resident Adviser

Anwar Ishmael – Resident Adviser

Koser Khan – Academic Lead

Laura Wharton – Local Authority Lead