RCDT Community Plan

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A central aim of RCDT is ...

"... to maximise the investment, influence and involvement of local residents. It is an independent community managed organisation that will represent residents and community organisations equally by building capacity, offering support and enabling a common agenda in order to achieve the long-term sustainability and regeneration of the area."

A discussion paper.

Towards a Community Plan

Introduction

1. ‘Planning Our Future’ was the title of a public meeting held on 28 June to enable people living and working in the Kennington, Oval and Vauxhall area to express their views to their newly elected Councillors. The meeting was organised by Riverside Community Development Trust, Kennington, Oval & Vauxhall Forum, Kennington Association and Lady Margaret Hall Settlement as the first stage in the process of putting together a community plan to reflect local concerns and ideas. The report of the meeting is available from RCDT. Although many points were made negatively, they encapsulated positive viewpoints about what people want and how things should be done. The criticisms and negativity was a sign of the frustration that their positive views and ideas are not usually accepted and the feeling that they are not listened to. The trick for developing a community plan and vision is to turn the negatives into their positives.

2. The follow-up from the public meeting has been to try and draft a community plan for wide discussion, but this has proved difficult. The new controlling Administration of the Council has decided to take a new approach to community consultation, involvement and engagement called ‘Communities First’. The approach includes the adoption of community plans for different neighbourhoods within the six Town Centre areas, developed by neighbourhood/and community ‘bodies’.

3. This discussion paper is a contribution to debate among local residents and workers and their community, voluntary, public and private sector organisations. It is premised on the need that the process of preparing a community plan needs to take into account:

· the nature of the area, how it is changing and its challenges and opportunities

· that local people and their organisations have expressed very clear views in the past through numerous campaigns and consultations, many of which may still be relevant

· the need for a clear understanding about what ‘community’ is as there is often confusion with people not stating clearly what they mean, which leads to misunderstandings

· understanding what is involved in trying to create ‘a better community’

· the role of community and voluntary organisations as this is often misunderstood

The Area

4. The Lambeth Riverside area of Kennington and Vauxhall has had a very low level of regeneration resources invested in it in recent years despite having a high concentration of residents with low incomes, high needs, low skill levels, and with little public voice. There are also residents with high levels of wealth and power. Many of the problems facing the area have been aggravated by the decisions of public and private organisations. In response a number of community and voluntary organisations have been established to fight proposals that local people did not agree with and to campaign for improvements. It is a lively and very diverse community full of talent and aspiration. Much of the ‘regeneration’ in the area has been along the riverfront in the form of major office and apartment developments with little benefit to the residents in the hinterland.

5. The MORI North Lambeth Survey (2002) found:

There is a high proportion of young people, single parent families, black and ethnic minority residents and residents whose main language is not English.
More residents rent, particularly from the Council (60%), than nationally. Taking the tenure differences into account, satisfaction with the home is lower than nationally.
Many residents have only lived in the area for a relatively short time.
The unemployment rate is higher than across London and twice the UK average. A third of the unemployed have not worked for over a year and more households than nationally have nobody in work.
Half of non-working residents of working age would like a job, though only half of these are currently looking for employment. Insufficient qualifications and experience, lack of suitable opportunities and lack of available childcare all featured as important barriers, along with poor spoken fluency in English.
Two thirds of residents had some form of educational or workplace qualifications, just below the national average for working age residents. However, a significant minority had no qualifications, especially among social renters and the unemployed.
Use of IT is similar to the UK as a whole but there is a technology or digital divide, with a significant minority having no access at all.
Perhaps consistent with the younger age profile, there are less households with someone with a long term illness, health problem or disability than nationally.
Over half the residents receive at least one form of benefit, higher than nationally, while mean incomes are lower.

6. Comprehensive analyses of the social and economic situation of the area was undertaken by Lady Margaret Hall Settlement for its Artisan’s School proposal (2002-3), and by the North Lambeth Town Centre Area Strategy Officer, supplemented by work carried out by the Neighbourhood Co-ordinator for Prince’s Ward (April 2005-March 2006).

People’s Views About The Area

7. One example about the views local people have expressed was through the North Lambeth MORI survey in 2002.

Satisfaction with the area is low, even compared with other deprived areas of London.
Overall quality of life is affected negatively by crime related issues and the quality of the street environment. Lack of facilities for young people is also of concern.
Many residents do not feel North Lambeth is a good place to bring up children, particularly single parents.
Most residents do not feel involved in the local community.
Satisfaction with a range of local services is below national levels, but is generally in line with, or higher than, those across the Borough as a whole. Satisfaction with the Council is above average for an inner London Borough.
Satisfaction with local post offices, GPs/health centres and refuse collection was relatively high. With street cleaning, road and pavement maintenance and leisure/sports centres it was relatively low.
Experience of crime, especially car crime, theft from the person and pestering/intimidation is higher than nationally. More residents feel unsafe after dark than nationally. Visible policing, CCTV, better street lighting, neighbourhood wardens and more activities for young people were residents’ priorities for improving safety.

8. In some respects there has been progress, but in others there have not been as reflected in the views expressed at the 28 June meeting and at the meeting held in October following the murder of Carmelita Tulloch.

Focus Vauxhall

9. Another example of previous expression of views was at the 1 and 2 March 20002 Focus Vauxhall discussion drafting an action plan. The following issues were among those highlighted:

· Vauxhall has an ‘image problem’ as a place to live and work.

· There was a lack of focus for cultural and historical understanding.

· There was little information available for businesses which were considering locating in Vauxhall.

· An effective forum was needed for communication between organisations.

· An effective community organisation was needed ‘to hold the flame for social regeneration in the area.’

· Planning decisions were considered is isolation and on individual merits, their implications not considered in terms of potential impact/benefits for the area.

· There was a lack of capacity within local resident and business communities to participate in and respond to changes taking place in the area.

· There was a lack of sustainable regeneration resources to ensure long-term social regeneration.

· A land use and ownership study was required to fully appraise the development of the area.

· Vauxhall lacked a commercial hub.

· There was a need to strengthen local retail in the area, particularly in Kennington Lane and Cross and Lambeth Walk.

· There was a need to retain businesses in the area.

· There was little activity to support existing businesses.

· A baseline of businesses located to form a starting point of inward investment strategy

· Vauxhall in not associated with any particular market sectors.

· An audit was needed of potential development or conversion opportunities to provide flexible accommodation.

· Lack of suitable premises for businesses to expand.

· Major issues were seen as: physical environment, fear of crime, little direct community involvement in management decisions, lack of innovative and community involvement projects.

· There was a perceived lack of further education provision in the area, though the new Lilian Baylis School would provide potential to develop more.

· Need to identify training needs particularly in relation to business start-ups.

· There was a need to find alternative ways of encouraging people into education.

· There was a mismatch between training provision and jobs available in the area.

· Local employment opportunities were seen as most likely in hotel, retail and restaurant sectors.

· Big companies in the area do not tend to recruit skilled workers locally.

· Support was need for more local start-ups and social enterprise.

· Need to find ways to stimulate and sustain inward investment to support local employment and skills development.

10. The question can be asked as to what progress has been made, and to what extent these views are still on the agenda.

What Do We Mean By Community?

11. Community’ can be defined as the web of personal relationships, groups, networks, traditions and patterns of behaviour:

· that exist amongst those who share physical neighbourhoods socio-economic conditions or common understandings and interests

· that develop against the backdrop of the physical neighbourhood and its socio-economic situation.

12. The word ‘community’ is often treated as a single entity. It is not – it is comprised of many different overlapping communities, including:

· geographic - people living in a neighbourhood or on an estate

· of interest sharing concerns and perspectives e.g. users, disabled, ethnic, faith, gender/sexuality, age based, interest, workplace, business, sport, hobby

13. People move in and out of different communities, and can belong to more than one community at any one time. However: Some communities are more privileged than others.

Creating a Better Community

14. To create a better ‘community’ in the area requires attention to be paid to support

(1) learning so that people and groups gain knowledge, skills and confidence through community action.

(2) the upholding of civic rights and equality of opportunity

(3) the recognition and celebration of the distinctive features of its diverse cultures of its residents

(4) people to be fully involved

(5) the creation and sustainability of strong and varied local organisations

(6) the participation of local people in the decisions which affect their interests.

(7) strengthening the local economy to create opportunities for work and retention of a high proportion of its wealth.

(8) awareness of the needs of more vulnerable people

(9) provision of good quality services that meets the needs of local people

(10) the maintenance and improvement of a healthy and pleasant environment

(11) growing awareness of environmental responsibility.

(12) a reduction in the fear crime, violence or other hazards.

(13) welcoming new residents

The Role of Community and Voluntary Organisations

15. Local community and voluntary groups work to improve the area with the involvement of and for the benefit of local people. In so doing they seek to create safer, socially cohesive local community, a community which is at ease with its diversity, which is skilled and which can face the future with confidence.

16. They range from informal through groups with minimal terms of reference, to those, which are registered as charities, Industrial & Provident Societies or as Companies limited by guarantee. They include self-help and user controlled groups, local neighbourhood groups, single issue groups, branches of national organisations, and local affiliates of national organisations. They are independent and self-governing. They do not have shareholders to whom they have to distribute profits. They are voluntary in the sense that they are made up of members who give of their time without payment. Some have no staff or premises, others have staff and premises, and some have developed trading activities or undertake contracts to deliver specialist services.

17. Despite the stresses of running these organisations and the tensions that can develop between them, their core values and purposes are:

• Working in partnership to maintain and build the community while recognising and respecting diversity (including culture and faith)

• Encouraging self-help rather than dependency where possible

• Building people's strengths to enable them to take up opportunities

• Consultation with the community is essential

• Recognising that discrimination is a fact of life and paying attention to it

• Valuing learning and friendship

18. They recognise that there are differing interests, sometimes conflicting, that there are different solutions to any problem, that by joint working, reaching a common understanding of why there are differences, through conflict resolution and mediation, solutions can be agreed which will have wide ranging support, and that dealing with issues of equalities and discrimination are central.

19. Community and voluntary organisations are central to the health of civic involvement through:

· helping people overcome alienation and exclusion,

· enabling everyone to contribute their skills to society’s mutual benefit

· reducing the opportunity for social fracture and conflict

· maximising the effectiveness of services and resources through responding to people’s needs and aspirations

20. In particular they:

· help disadvantaged people link with service providers

· provide services alongside the public and private sector

· respond to the expressed needs of different groups in the community rather than to the perceived needs or ‘agency’ agendas of the public sector

· reach people and involve those whom the public sector has failed to reach

· mobilise both human and financial resources which the public sector cannot

· take risks

· experiment, innovate and work in creative ways

· bring a ‘bottom-up’ perspective into policy debates with public agencies

· listen to what local people, members and users want and need

· mediate between different, often conflicting community perspectives

· articulate the view of people without the skills or confidence to speak for

themselves

· advocate for the rights of the most marginalised and excluded people in

society

· are motivated by their commitment to improve life for the people they work with, investing time and energy in achieving improvements

· are a repository of ideas and experience

· provide mentoring and leadership

· involve people in service delivery whether as users or self-help/autonomous

groups

· provide added value through the time and energy of their volunteers, their generation of donations and the re-investment of surpluses generated by service delivery

· undertake activities which provide additional support and services to public

services

20. Community and voluntary organisations have many roles, often several at the same time.

· Advocate

· Promoter

· Service Provider

· Customer

· Strategic Partner

· Channel

· Educator

· Employer

· Change Agent

· Innovator

· Campaigner

21. The community and voluntary sector has economic significance as:

· employer

· purchaser of goods and services

provider of basic skills and other training support that help people into the

labour market

· supporter of increasing the income of those on benefits while they seek jobs or of those who never will be able to work because of disability, health and age needs.

22. The sector has social significance:

· acting as a vehicle for self-help and collective action

· providing health and social services

· contributing to social inclusion

· engaging volunteers

· generating and distributing resources for social and educational purposes

· campaigning and providing a voice for many socially excluded people and special interests

· providing ways in which people can be involved as citizens.

Some Possible Elements For A Community Plan And Vision

23. The attached draft is an attempt to begin the process of suggesting elements that might go into a community plan building on the ‘Planning Our Future’ meeting and other matters discussed at meetings on other issues. For example the section below on Spring Gardens is an agreement between a number of local community and voluntary sector organisations involved in the Spring Gardens Development Framework group. The principles inherent in it could be applied to how to deal with future areas identified for improvement and investment. What follows is by no means comprehensive. It may hopefully provide a basis on which local residents and workers and their organisations will want to draft their own additional or alternative ideas and concerns.

Sean Creighton

Development & Management Worker

Riverside Community Development Trust

17 November 2006

info@rcdt.org

Note. The detailed views expressed in this discussion paper do not necessarily reflect the views of RCDT’s Board. The Board supports the desirability of developing a community plan, which is why it was one of the joint organisers of the 28 June ‘Planning Our Future’ public meeting, and agreed a statement of its view on priorities for the area – the key elements of which form the section ‘Some Priorities’ below.

TOWARDS A COMMUNITY PLAN

Possible elements for inclusion

Vision

Local residents and their organisations want to see Lambeth Councillors and Officers, Lambeth First, landlords and developers, and public service agencies such as the police and the health services working together with local organisations and businesses to create a community:

· that provides good quality support to families, children and young people, and older people

· that provides good quality services to people with health and learning difficulties

· that fosters the building of community organisation and cohesion

· that fosters social, ethnic, and faith interconnection

· that fosters talent and skills among local residents and businesses

· that protects the aspects of the local built environment that local people value

· that ensures that locally public owned assets are changed and developed for the future benefit of the local community

· that provides good quality social housing at rents people can afford

· that resist developments that push up land values and which are above (?) storeys high

· that ensures that Section 106 planning gain money is kept within the area for community benefit

· that works to keep local businesses viable and can remain in the area

· that undertakes all developments as a partnership with the local community and its organisations

· that provides a range of informal and formal learning opportunities

· that seeks to reduce the level of social deprivation

· that provides effective intervention and support to help people damaged by their life experiences to overcome the damage caused by their life experiences and life styles

· that reduces the negative impacts of traffic through the area and of current traffic control measures

· that finds ways to reduce the barrier effect of the railway viaduct on splitting the new residential communities on the Embankment and Vauxhall Cross from the area hinterland

· that promotes the rich and diverse history and culture of the area.

25. Local organisations consider that a partnership approach which values the creativity, talent, skills and resources of local people will help create a form of regeneration that contributes to improved life for all sections of the local community, whether existing or future new arrivals, and reduces the potential for social fractures and divisions. Local people should be at the heart of decision making.

Community and Public Assets

· Public land and building assets should be retained for public service and community uses.

· Where possible assets should be transferred to the freehold, or long-term leasehold control of organisations which are controlled by members of the local community.

· Given the need for funding resources all monies generated by the sale of Council assets in the area should be put into a fund for supporting improvements and community and voluntary organisations.

· All proposals for the sale of public assets should be initially discussed through community engagement activities to ascertain the community perspective, ideas and options for the future of those public assets.

The Operation of the Council

· Council Departments should consult with all relevant local groups the moment they have identified that a locally provided service is to be changed or the use of a building or site needs changing.

· The Council should fund local groups to carry out public consultations, including a requirement to train local residents to do it.

· Council Departments should co-operate and work in a joined up way.

Section 106

· Section 106 money generated in the area should be pooled into a fund for the area.

· The Section 106 Fund for the area should be controlled by Councillors and representatives of local community and voluntary organisations with an annual process of broad consultation to decide the priorities on how it should be spent.

· Local groups should publicly adopt a policy of refusing to have private meetings by themselves with developers, and only to have meetings where several local groups are involved with the notes being available publicly.

· The Council should require payment of Section 106 money on signing the appropriate agreement.

The Former Lilian Baylis School Site

· This site should be developed to help provide a central focus for the area

· It should be the site for a new leisure and sports facility.

· Other parts of the site should be developed to provide community facilities, workshop spaces and housing at rents people can afford.

· Any housing built on the site for sale must be integrated in with social housing.

Beaufoy Institute

· This building should be brought back into use as a centre for technical training and vocational training in accord with the original charitable objectives.

· Any new building development on the car park part of the site should be for businesses or other activities that integrate with or complement the training activity, such as contributing to the training and providing work placements and jobs for those qualifying.

Spring Gardens

· The community, regeneration and social value of the Gardens should be paramount in determining the final improvement proposals.

· There should be recognition and commemoration of the international importance of the historical background of the area (Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens).

· The community assets adjacent to the Gardens should be improved and better integrated with the Gardens to increase the complimentary added value of the attraction of the Gardens and those assets.

· The long-term viability of Vauxhall City Farm and St Peter’s Church and Vauxhall Heritage Centre are integral to the attraction of an improved Spring Gdns.

· The maintenance and enhancement of the quality of service offered by All Nations Centre to residents, particularly in regard to Sunday/weekday services, the James Kane Nursery and its Saturday school should be integral to the improvements.

· Imaginative design solutions are needed especially in respect of some of the road and boundary issues which compromise safety especially of children, and which visually detract from the amenity of the Gardens.

· Capital and maintenance investment should be organised to maximise employment and training opportunities for local people (e.g. contract work in the park, landscaping, etc).

· Meeting the needs of the different groups of residents, especially those on the estates near the Gardens should be at the centre of the improvements.

· There should be a continual process of ensuring the involvement of all parties who are identified as potentially being affected by different aspects of the proposals.

· Ways need to be found by all parties involved in the development process to increase the level of community knowledge and engagement in the process.

· While there may be disagreements over some of the details of the emerging improvement plan all parties involved should seek to resolve the matters within the spirit of partnership to ensure that the overall improvement goal is achieved.

· The improvement process should be seen as a long-term project to ensure that the value of the investment in the improvements is not eroded by inadequate spending on subsequent maintenance.

New Developments

· The impact of all new developments should be assessed and subject to public discussion as part of the planning process in respect of:

· traffic generation

· impact on local infrastructure and services

· effect on demographic change and its implications

· contribution to greening the environment, recycling facilities, and energy and water efficiency, and CO2 emissions.

Economic Development

· The Council should work with local community and voluntary groups and businesses to create a local economic strategy for the area to address the low level of economic activity, the skills shortages, increase jobs and help retain existing businesses.

· This strategy should include a major component for the purchase of building assets (inc. shops) by community and voluntary groups, including social enterprises to ensure a slowing down of the profit driven rent increases and to enable the development of services and shops for the benefit of local people, including training and job provision.

· The strategy should provide funding for job brokerage and business development support services in the area.

· The strategy should recognise that computer training and English as a Second Language are key pre-requisites for many newer local residents being able to engage more in the local community, better equipped to understand how to use local services and to obtain jobs. The strategy should therefore include funding to ensure sustainable training projects and fund the child care needs of mothers with young children so they can take part in the training.

Pedestrian and Public Transport Improvements

· There should be more pedestrian facilities across Kennington Park Rd to enable people from the Kennington Park Estate to cross over into Kennington Park.

· There should be an assessment of the distance between bus stops and their proximity to residential blocks with a view to installing more.

· There should be a tunnel link to the Vauxhall underground and railway station from the Royal Vauxhall Tavern side of Kennington Lane.

· There should be improved bus services along the lower end of Kennington Lane from the Cross to Vauxhall.

New Developments and Planning Permission

· The Government should agree not to override the wishes of local people, Lambeth Council and the planning Inspectorate when they reject proposed developments.

Some Priorities

· The development of sustainable community education and training provision.

· Sustainable children’s and youth activities.

· Support for the establishment of residents organisations on the unorganised blocks on local estates.

· The establishment of a full-time advice service for the area.

· The creation of sustainable community development and community capacity building support including the employment of at least one community development worker employed in the community and voluntary sector.

· Discussion about how groups can work more closely together on activities, funding and use of resources.

Local Area Agreement

· The Council, Lambeth First and each proposed neighbourhood body should enter into a neighbourhood area agreement incorporating the community plan.

· The neighbourhood area agreement should form part of the Local Area Agreement between the Council/Lambeth First and the Government.