Upper Horfield’s Pride of Place Initiative: Residents and Partners Working Together for Change

Change management

The initial instigators of the POP initiative were residents who had lived in the area prior to the regeneration project and had been closely involved in establishing BCHF as the estate’s new housing provider. In October 2007, they met with the Community Development Worker to start a simple project to walk around part of the estate with key BCHF staff and note down issues of concern. Initially, these walkabouts comprised about six residents, BCHF’s Community Development Worker, Housing Officer and Neighbourhood Caretaker. The list of issues was then logged onto a database by the Community Development Worker and farmed out to the relevant staff member or external agency to follow up.

After only two months of walkabouts, residents felt they would like to deal with the street litter as they walked around so BCHF invested in litter pickers, a pull-along garden truck and high-visibility tabards so that litter picks could be incorporated into the walkabouts. Walkabouts were advertised in advance and the group started to attract some additional members, including from residents starting to move into homes in the phases that were being completed to the east of the estate.

In 2008, residents volunteering on the partnership were given the title of Street Rep and a further recruiting campaign was then commenced to try to recruit a Street Rep in every street. This led to a further 34 residents applying to become Street Reps – giving coverage in the majority of streets. A guidance manual had already been created by two neighbourhoods in south Bristol who had existing Street Rep schemes and BCHF was granted permission to use this and adapt it to fit their areas. This manual contains everything from how to report a broken street light to how hate crime can be reported.

Contact was also being made by the Community Development Worker with agencies including the police and city council’s waste services team and meetings were then introduced to enable residents to meet with these officers and raise neighbourhood issues with them directly.

Of particular importance to the success of POP initiative are the links it has  created with the Neighbourhood Beat Manager, P.C. Ben Lavender (latterly P.C. Alan Gentry), and the City Council’s Waste Services Manager, Trudy Feeney. These links and the strong partnership approach which places residents in the driving seat has helped to change the dynamics of neighbourhood management in the area away from a simple list of anonymous issues to a setting where relationships drive action and all partners start to appreciate each other’s position.