Community Development in North East Lincolnshire

North East Lincolnshire contains within its borders a wide range of communities, these can be:

• Communities of Geography like a village, parish or electoral ward area (although some communities can be just one or two streets within larger areas)
• Ethnic Communities which may not share the same location but have a culture and heritage in common.
• Faith Communities which as the name suggests are brought together around a specific faith or religion.
• Communities of Interest which can be anything from a hobby group to an environmental activist group.
• Organisations, including Charities, Social Enterprises and Development Trusts which encompass Community Centres and other community buildings

In the past all of these groups have, more or less, pursued separate goals and looked for funding as separate entities. All over the world there is evidence to show that if people get together to make a plan for their community and add that to plans of other communities positive change results.

So we are embarking on a Community led planning process initially based in the six Community First funded ward areas (because they need a plan to keep being funded)  but the aim is to have a community led plan for each ward, parish and town area in North East Lincolnshire.

I know I’ve said that there is a lot of evidence to back this process up worldwide but closer to home in North Lincolnshire if you go here  you can see how a rural area has really got to grips with the Community Led Planning process and has an Action Planning process which can be used to promote community and service provider solutions to local issues.

The biggest thing a plan does though is to identify the assets in the community (particularly human assets) which can be mobilised when new issues or ideas arise. It might be, for example, that there is a building in your area which would serve a community purpose, from the planning process it is more likely that the people you need to make something happen will have been identified and can be approached to see if they are willing to take it on.

The other thing the plan does for a community is give a coherent starting point for negotiations with local authorities, health providers and police teams to guide their input to the community. All in all the planning process is going to be the essential starting point for communities of all varieties to look at how we can all work more effectively together.

All of this is my first attempt to highlight the need for effective Community Planning in writing on the web. There is also the announcement to make that 16 people locally will be trained to deliver the Planning for Real process in North East Lincolnshire so that community plans will be genuinely led by the community.

If you are interested in the process then check here  to see how it works and keep checking here to see how you can support the process once it is underway.