In this blog, our Director Crispin shares our thinking and plans for the ‘Where People Meet’ community centres programme and celebrates our launch of the New Local report on the value and future of community centres.
You can read the full report here and listen to the podcast here with Crispin, New Local’s Sara Masters, the Sutton Centre’s Sam Kirkby and Josie Cowgill from Trinity Rooms Community Hub, interviewed by Katy Oglethorpe, reflecting on the report’s key ideas.
‘Where People Meet’ is a new pilot programme being run by the Rayne Trust to help us understand how to help those seeking to create or enhance community centres in their local area. It was born out of trustees’ deep concern at the loss over recent decades of public and community buildings, particularly in disadvantaged communities, to the point that in some areas there is no decent facility for people to come together at all. Civil society needs a place to meet if it is to function, people need to be able to come together to live full and healthy lives.
We also recognise the power which locally run, multi-functional and high–quality community centres can have to transform people’s health and wellbeing. As we explore the history and present-day work of those involved, we are seeing how investment in the physical structure of a community ‘hub’ can also flow through into the creation of services and solutions for a plethora of social needs. Where communities have real control – for example in the brilliant community asset transfer movement – we are seeing practical, grassroots-led and cross-sectoral responses to social need, often informal and always welcoming, inclusive and diverse. The result can be great services and support for the most vulnerable within a holistic centre of value to the whole community. But provision is patchy, resources are scarce, and the community champions leading this work need more support.
The learning journey which we are on has included the creation of a high-level multi-disciplinary network of people with an interest in community centres, discussions, debates and visits to those who know about the needs and the many solutions being invested in by partnerships and people across the UK. The research we commissioned New Local to produce is a key part of this exploration and the publication of the report on the future of community centres, on 7th May, with its in-depth analysis, participant-sourced content and concrete, partnership-based recommendations, is an exciting moment for ‘Where People Meet’.
The New Local report provides the evidence and the reasoning for the massive importance of community centres in modern-day Britain. It moves us from our initial vision and passion to provide a plan for working in the broadest of partnerships, to deliver a new future for these undervalued resources. The recommendations of ‘Where People Meet’ will, we hope, provide both a rallying cry and a realistic framework for co-operation. If others agree, we want to work together to put community centres on the map for policymakers seeking to effect real local solutions to social and health challenges, to promote an enabling approach by government locally and nationally, and to bring new resources and support on a significant scale to communities doing this work.
This summer, we will launch an open call for grant applications that practically support community leaders and organisations to enhance community centres in their areas, with the ambition of inspiring a larger fund for community centres and community assets, drawing together a number of cross-sector partners to establish a pooled fund.
That way we will realise together, the radical difference which the ‘vibrant, inclusive and sustainable’ community centre of 2040 can make to everyone’s lives.