Category C: Best community engagement/consultation – Sponsored by the LGA (Local Government Association)
Winner – Lambeth Council – Neighbourhood Enhancement Programme
Summary
Lambeth Council has successfully delivered a community-led street improvement programme across six wards over a 12 month period, based on firm evidence of popular support.
Improvements have included the creation of new community spaces and play areas, green routes through estates, educational projects and planting of over 300 trees, as well as a range of road safety measures.
Working closely with other departments and agencies has helped us to quickly deliver improvements to services and facilities for which we are not responsible.
We engaged the community in three phases, using a wide range of approaches, successfully encouraging community groups to lead the engagement in some areas.
Around 8% of residents participated. We received many compliments, for example:
“I feel you are working towards the world I want to live in. Thank you for your hard work”.
“I just wanted to say how impressed I am with the letter I received asking for my opinion on which improvements I would prefer in my own area. The information was very succinct but comprehensive… all very professional. Most importantly, it feels good to live somewhere where the opinion of the locals is asked for and stands for something”.
Results
The community-based Stockwell Partnership carried out 528 minority language face-to-face interviews for us in restaurants, hairdressers, mosques, playgrounds, after-school clubs and other venues with Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Arabic, Somali, Tigrinian and Amharic speakers, amounting to almost half of the total responses we received from residents of the area.
Reference
- There are feedback reports on each of the six NEP areas (and a seventh on ‘out of scope’ suggestions), on the NEP page of the Lambeth Council website