For over 20 years, the Wharton Trust has supported people in the Dyke House area of Hartlepool – one of the most deprived wards in the UK. At the core of its ethos is social action and community organising, providing people with the tools to change things for themselves.
Charlotte Hollins tells the story behind the UK’s first community-owned farm, after 8000 people bought shares to save Fordhall from being taken over.
From sports to socialising, this local patch of green space provides crucial space for people to come together.
We were about to take ownership of this vital site at the heart of our community and develop it according to the community’s real needs. And that’s when things went wrong.
A Community Power Act would mean our community’s real and intense need for a more cost-effective and accessible community transport service would get the attention and funding it requires.
I have the voice of my community, I have the backing of two community football clubs and the backing of a major local property developer. What we need now is to understand how we do it.
Ben Hughes shares his experience of putting the community at the heart of service design.
It shouldn’t be so difficult for us to get a hearing when these are the decisions which so fundamentally shape our lives. I suffer from some chronic health conditions, and over the years I got increasingly frustrated that issues around reproductive and mental health were being trivialised by healthcare professionals and sexualised by the ethnic […]
I like the idea that people who live here can have influence. We have a right to expect better I have worked in public services in Barrow for most of my working life. A lot of people move to the Lake District, but it feels different when you were born and brought up here and have a […]
The Labour Party has begun to set out a vision to shift where power lies so local people can genuinely shape the places where they live. This is how to make it a reality.