Imagine a park…
Imagine a park in a middle of a town. Imagine the park is looked after by a group of local residents. It is a beautiful park with a small lake. In the summer there are Dad’s rowing their children around in little rowing boats. A social enterprise has been set up to generate income from renting the boats. The income from the boats pays for the upkeep of the lake.
On the bandstand a local children’s band is taking part in a concert that they have organised with their friends. Older people are given tambourines and join in with the young people.
On Tuesday evenings there are a group of naturalists with ages ranging from 7 to 70 years old taking photographs of the plants and trees in the park. They all agree to use their photographs to identify the different plants in the park.
There is a gardening group that uses a large industrial greenhouse to grow plants and shrubs that keeps the park looking beautiful. They also sell surplus plants and shrubs in order to pay for the upkeep of the park. There are information boards throughout the park which explains how the park came into being. This is something that the local residents can identify with; indeed it feels like their park.
There is a large pavilion in the centre of the park containing toilets that are spotless. The group that manages the park recognises that toilets can often put visitors off so they put the cleanliness of the toilets as a priority. When they took on the park it was not used because of the amount of dog fouling. There are now a number of dog litter bins throughout the park.
The group gets together every January to discuss the planned events for the rest of the year. Every bonfire night they hold a community bonfire and use a variety of methods for gaining the views of the community on the kinds of events that the community would like to see. There is a 50p discount on the pie and peas for anybody giving their views.
Any volunteer that gives more than 50 hours a year to the park gets to see their name on the honours board within the park. They are also able to use the facilities once a year without having to pay for them. Most of them use the facilities for birthday parties.
The playing fields are used for an annual sports day where people of all ages take part in events. It is also used for a weekly tai chi group during the summer. The local GP’s refer people onto the tai chi sessions because of the benefits to the local people.
The park is a busy, clean, well-used hub where the community to come together. The local community has an emotional attachment to the park and people are often seen picking litter up as they walk through the park.
This park is a notional park but it could also be anywhere in North East Lincs. The fact that I am writing this blog having just walked through People’s Park in Grimsby is not a coincidence.
This park is a community asset that is valued greatly by the local community. When talking about community assets I am talking about assets in their widest context. The park itself is of course a major asset, the buildings contained within the park are assets, the community that plants the flowers are also an asset, and the agencies that support the park are also assets.
Community assets come in all shapes, sizes, made up of different materials, political colours, genders and ages. In this blog I will talk about the assets of North East Lincolnshire generally and will include an asset that VANEL is currently managing. The Elms on Abbey Road is populated on the ground floor by VANEL staff and provides a home upstairs for the Safer and Stronger community’s team of North East Lincs Council. In future posts I will highlight some of the experiences and issues that VANEL has faced since taking over The Elms.
Contact Mick Bailey at VANEL via mick@vanel.org.uk