Advising Residents Supporting Communities

Stoke CAB’s unique Residents Friend Project continues to provide an invaluable link between Renew North Staffs and the communities affected by regeneration.

The service is split between providing one to one advice and support to individuals directly affected by the proposals and supporting residents, collectively, to engage with the various consultation and master planning exercises. The extent to which individual Residents Friends, based in each of the areas of major intervention, focus on either individual advice or community support will depend on the stage in the process the programme has reached in that area.

2008/9 saw major master planning processes launched in City Waterside and Northwood. Residents Friend Geoff Davies’ role was to support resident involvement in that consultation process to enable ordinary people to have their say in the future of their community.

This has involved everything from taking part in consultation events to talk people through the process and help them understand the implications for them, to working closely with partner agencies to ensure consultation events are accessible and effective. Working with partners to ensure that venues are accessible, languages as appropriate and the message is communicated effectively to residents is also part and parcel of a Residents Friend role.

Residents Friends also engage proactively with residents who are unable to attend consultation events through outreach initiatives and home visiting.

“The Housing Market Renewal programme will only achieve its wider objectives if it successfully engages with local communities takes on board their aspirations for their neighbourhoods and works closely with them,” said Health & Regeneration Manager Mary Tomkinson. “Residents Friends can provide a key link between communities and regeneration agencies”.

In Meir, where the process had progressed beyond master planning to clearance, Lorna Park has found herself advising residents on many of the issues which inevitably arise in any major demolition programme.

Meanwhile in Shelton she helped support residents in selecting consultants to lead on the forthcoming master planning process, including getting training organised in the selection process.

In Middleport Mick Brownsword has spent much of the year working with residents groups to ensure they understood the options that were being presented for the re-development of their area. This involved calling personally on many residents in their homes to go through the plans with them as well as attending a range of events in the Middleport and Burslem areas.

“The biggest challenge has been making sure that residents come away from consultation events with a clear understanding of what has been proposed and that the maps and plans, which are easily understood by the regeneration professionals, are also understood by the people most directly affected.”

We then worked extensively with residents individually and in groups to collect their views and feed them back to Renew, before finally Renew came out with a plan for Middleport which the majority of residents support.

But the heart of the work, remains in one to one advice to individuals and families affected by the programme. The following case study demonstrates clearly the sort of work on which Emily Tomkinson has been concentrating in the Knutton and Cross Heath area.