I facilitated one of the workshop groups that followed the speech through the task of identifying some of the opportunities and challenges that the Big Society presents for Enfield’s residents and organisations. The group thought that the Big Society agenda could encourage groups to collaborate, form partnerships and work together. The potential competition between local organisations for fewer resources and contracts, and with public sector workers who may have lost their jobs, was mentioned as a challenge. The different opportunities for participation that different people and areas have was another potential challenge, including the difficultly of engaging more transient groups such as the temporarily housed population of Enfield. I will look forward with interest to reading the full report of the day.

The findings in Bradford are of great interest to the research coming out across the Pathways project, and of particular interest to the inner city case-study in Leeds, another Yorkshire city where we are exploring participation on estates home to different degrees of deprivation and some socially excluded groups. Similarly to the Pathways project, the JRF research also used a form of participatory mapping to access different types of information from residents. It makes for an interesting read to see how the two research teams have used visual data in different ways.

Download the JRF report here, and download the Pathways report on participatory mapping here

EB: What made you interested in being involved in the project?

DM: When I heard about the project through the Fox Lane and District Residents’ Association, I’d been thinking about how to develop the Broomfield Community Orchard Project and I was interested to hear other people’s thoughts on how to do this.

I’m also involved in a group called ‘Improving our Place’ – a network of people who trying to improve the area. I thought that the research you are doing sounded interesting and I wanted to hear more about it; both locally and nationally. Having worked as a town planner in London and have some experience of supporting local groups, I am interested in hearing about the ways communities engage in participation and work together.

EB: You’ve taken part in a mapping workshop and been to your first quarterly local stakeholder group meeting – how are you finding being involved in the project so far?

DM: The mapping workshop was fascinating. Although the workshop group was small, I thought the outcome was very interesting: [the map] opened my eyes to my area and everyone seemed to enjoy it. What came across to me was that people have a lot of enthusiasm for sharing information about their local area, and that we all have a different perception about what our ‘local area’ is. Trying to map it as a diagram or as a literal map presented our group with an interesting challenge. Luckily it all came together quite well – or so we thought!

‘Mapping’ is a very useful exercise to go through; so often if you’re consulted on something and it’s usually some time before you any tangible results; but by creating a map and putting it up on the wall and talking about it gave us a strong sense of ownership. It also struck me that this approach that could also be useful for Local Authorities in planning their services as it provides a really good snapshot of an area. Although you can never expect to be fully comprehensive with the information, it could be an effective way of involving people in the community who don’t normally participate – such as school children and older people.

I was new to the LSG, and was struck how members were able to take a wide view of the services that their organisations provide together with the comprehensiveness of their knowledge of the area. It’s a very different starting point from that of a local resident. I was also struck by how open the discussion was and how useful it was in terms of feeding info through to you [EB]. I would like to see another resident on the LSG as I have a certain view (as a middle aged male) about things, whereas a woman with young children will see the area differently.

EB: What would you like to see coming out of the project?

DM: Idealistically, one would hope that information and thoughts about the nature of volunteering in the area, and how to encourage the participation of people who don’t get involved, will be fed through to local services and organisations and help open all our eyes about what makes it possible. I’d like to see local organisations being drawn into the research in such as way that they can then make use of the outcomes. I see as one of the opportunities of the project is to consider the connections between highly structured and informal participation.

I’d also like to see the recommendations being something that are both digestible and interesting enough to put in the local paper in the form of a leaflet; something that grabs people attention and shows that the project is not another academic piece of work. It needs to be something that connects with local communities.

EB: If you had to sum up the area of Enfield we’re looking at in 3 words, what would they be?

DM: Post-war suburbia.

They certainly look like an interesting charity, and I’ll be keeping an eye on their movements and progress in the coming months.