Written by Lauren Pearse

Here you can find all of our previous blogs about the place plan development in Priors Park documenting all of the workshop sessions from October 2025 to March 2026, so prepare for a long but thorough read. This is to provide context around Party With The Park as an outcome of the sessions (blog here), give a little background behind the full evaluation (blog here) and keep them archived now that Bromford Lab has been discontinued.

Month 1 (Oct 2025)

I attended the first of six Priors Park place sessions at Shannon Way, Tewkesbury with the goal of exploring what a ‘place plan’ could potentially look like.

Place plans aim to be co-created documents made within a place to help guide and direct priorities for it’s team and wider community. Priors Park was BFL's first chance to fully explore this and these sessions provided a lot of insight into the steps other places may have to take to create their own. In many ways place plans are an even bigger reflection of how different places are different from one another as it maps all of their unique wants, needs, residents, geography and networks. Whilst having a "place standard" is crucial in operating terms, individual place plans are even more essential as they are what brings the bottom-up approach alive.

The session was hosted by Rich Holmes from Go Together, a training and consultancy organisation specialising in community-led change. All of the workshops lasted for a full day and had been thoughtfully designed to reflect values like collaboration, shared ownership, and existing strengths seen in asset-based community development (ABCD). It also gave myself and other colleagues the chance to connect and work with others we wouldn’t normally see day to day, both internally and externally. 

The core parts of these sessions were focused on being interactive, prioritising group discussion as much as possible. Notable differences from typical workshops, like the lack of PowerPoint presentation, sitting in a circle of chairs rather than rows and movement-based activities as part of #ActiveSoles helped to create a fun and energising atmosphere to explore what would otherwise be a very big and complex task. 

Other notable takeaways included: 

“Flow” not a schedule: Throughout the session we worked within a flexible “flow,” not a fixed schedule. This allowed the group to adapt and evolve based on shared needs and emerging conversations instead of having to cut anything short.

Paper policy: As previously mentioned there was no PowerPoint in sight and the same could be said for laptops, phones and other kinds of technology, even lanyards. Responses were shared exclusively on paper which helped us all to connect and engage more actively in the session.

The Venn Diagram: The most thought-provoking part of the day came in the form of exploring the 3 main points of contact within a place-based approach; community, organisations and systems. More specifically, how those areas need to adapt to bring about growth. What needs to happen locally? What shifts are needed in practice and mindset? What broader policies or structures must evolve? Each group added actions or ideas to a physical venn diagram on the floor in each of these areas and we all co-berated at the end to see how they all interacted and identified where cross overs were.

Chances to express: In these types of sessions expression and getting to know each other is crucial for any kind of progress to be made. The day was just as much about making us feel more comfortable around each other and bonding as a group as it was about getting answers. Techniques like sitting in a circle, using objects as a way of marking when it’s someone's turn to speak and more creative/visual thought tasks like drawing were not just memorable but served to fully open us all up to the art of the possible. 

Closing circle: The closing circle meant we ended where we began. It was at this point we built our baseline tree, capturing our hopes, strengths, and intentions moving forward as a group as well as reflected individually on what we needed to do to achieve the goals we set out. 

This was made more evident when the conversation of customer engagement came up and some people pointed out that despite our own views; some customers are happy as they are. That's where we came up with the idea of replacing the word change with growth instead. It puts emphasis back onto something being a shared experience and goes from our focus being deficit based and trying to change those things to acknowledging the strengths a community already has and building upon it. This isn't to say anything negative should be ignored as another memorable part of the session showed us glass half empty and glass half full thinking around different scenarios. It was noticed quite quickly you can't have one without the other and a grey area needs to be found. Grey areas are always going to feel uncomfortable as there no “absolutes” there, a little like the “groan zone”, but ultimately if you allow things to be uncomfortable and exist in that space we come to better conclusions.

Think of it like a tree or plant, it will grow independently in whatever way the sun shines brightest and it's up to us to give it the space and care to do so. Sometimes it will grow fast, sometimes slow, sometimes offshoots will spring up where you least expect them to but that's the essence of the bottom-up approach. We don't determine where the sun shines, the customers do. They know what makes them happy and that's where we need to adapt.

By the end of the session there were 3 main emerging areas of focus:

1. Working with the community in Priors Park to grow local capacity and leadership.

2. Strengthening cross-organisational and community relationships that enable a community-led approach.

3. Deepening understanding of place-based practice among BFL colleagues, so teams can work better together and serve local residents.

Month 2 (Nov 2025)

I attended the second session of the Priors Park workshops, this time hosted at Tewkesbury Rugby Football Club.

This session drew our focus towards how individuals work in tandem to influence and contribute to the unique assets, skills and strengths within their community. This led onto the task of asset mapping, where we worked to identify what the unique aspects of Priors Park were, using a combination of second and first-hand research, as well as the existing knowledge of people in the group.

This comes off the back of thinking of ourselves as assets as well, instead of solely physical places, clubs/groups and organisations. It significantly broadens the capabilities present within a place and begins to help us move away from the 'fix it' status, where people feel on the back foot from the outset and often want to preserve one-way services as solutions. This exercise aids to flip this mantra on its head, restoring acts of service as a basis for connection rather than a dispensary. Each of us possesses knowledge, skills, motivations and passions other people and teams may not and this can pose a significant advantage if utilised correctly.

Place-based working's strength was the most prevalent in the asset mapping task.

We were split into 3 groups: each with a place to go.

• Group A South: Children's Centre, School, Pharmacy, shop cluster

• Group B North: Lanes Court, Abbey, Vineyards, green spaces

• Group C Stay: Rugby Club to create the map.

(Group A and B to feedback to C at homebase via WhatsApp.)

And we looked at mapping the following:

• Individual assets (e.g. the skills, talents, abilities and passions of community members)

• Local community groups and networks (e.g. social services, clubs, mums & bubs groups, sporting clubs etc)

• Local government and non-government agencies (e.g. churches, schools, departments, neighbourhood centres etc)

• Physical assets (natural and built environment)

• Economic assets (productive work of individuals, consumer spending power, local businesses)

• Cultural assets (local stories, heritage, identity, values)

Obviously, a quick search on google would have revealed a few of the buildings, clubs, orgs etc. as well as surface level information from websites and social media, but would completely fail to tell me anything about them on a deeper level. Whereas residents and colleagues who worked there were able to say what spaces certain clubs shared/ran out of, who runs them/gets involved with them, whether they are popular or not, whether any information presented online was outdated etc.

This is why place is important as this understanding could only be accessed through the people who work/live/operate in Priors Park. Without that, I'd be none the wiser. The best part: all the knowledge was already there, it was just about asking the right questions, with a clear purpose, and allowing people the time to express. 

The conclusion of the day was that discovery leads to opportunity, but the missing piece is the middle, CONNECTION. Place plans and mapping assets will not just be about collecting more information for another directory; but weaving everything together into tangible networks away from the noise of measurables and towards the telling of stories. However, the next question was precisely that: what questions do we need to ask to evoke these stories and get residents involved with this whole process? 

Month 3 (Dec 2025)

This time we met at Priors Park Community church, a setting that in the last session was identified as a major asset for people within the community and was the hosting space for many local groups.

As always the session was facilitated by Rich Holmes from Go Together and we were also joined this time by Emily Brady-Young, a realist researcher and the evaluator for this project. She described realist research as learning through storytelling and thought patterns, a more qualitative approach in comparison to what we are used to, which is more or less what place is all about. Less focus on metrics and more emphasis on what ideas are being born through our conversations and reflections, as well as how they are going on to fuel growth and weave a narrative around what we are trying to achieve. 

The session kicked off with some "people bingo". This built off what we did in the previous session on discovering capabilities and capacity within the team to do different tasks, again showing how even in small groups your skillsets can cover quite a large area.  

Next, we did a short 15-minute walkabout in Priors Park. There was a good 50/50 split in our group of people who regularly visit, or work in Priors Park and people who don't, creating a very useful teacher/learner dynamic as we discovered more about the place.

It's this dynamic in of itself that will carry place forward and this task gave us a great opportunity to take Priors Park off of a map and visit the places we'd been talking about physically, the garages that were due for demolition being a big centre of focus.

The small group I was part of was approached by a resident asking if we were “from Bromford” and giving his views on the garages upon noticing that we were looking around. He was very eager to express concerns, ranging from recent thefts and vehicle fires, lack of light on the stretch of land the garages are on, to rubbish and bin management, as well as the condition of the garages themselves. 

But as he spoke, it became quite clear that these types of conversations could be simple and are perhaps better had in passing, especially in environments where residents feel comfortable to approach us first. He was simply talking about his daily life and what he sees/hears on a regular basis. It completely grounded the task, not needing a survey, clipboard or prompt from us to get it off the ground.

After this we fed back on what we'd learnt and got our first look at an early-stage asset map using Padlet, put together by Rich. It took everything that we'd mapped out last session on flipchart paper and turned it digital, making it so we could hover over assets we'd identified and know what they were. Whilst a work in progress, it was exactly what we'd all envisioned in making asset-based knowledge more accessible and detailed. 

The second half of the session was largely focused around the language we are using when talking about Place. Rich noted that to spread this thinking and get others truly involved we needed to have a certain level of mindfulness when it came to the conversations we had, perhaps stepping away from our usual script and finding one that lends itself better to the spirit of place.

The last part of the session covered collaboration and how you can start forming open conversations about topics of interest. This involved a hosting style system where someone with a question would host a group discussion that people could come and go from. There was no pressure or requirement to talk about something that didn't interest you, as long as there were “golden nuggets” you could take away and turn into action. Many topics came up, such as ambitions born from assets like activities for vulnerable people, some were based around communication such as how we tackle historical differences in groups of people and how we can connect better with parents and children, another was focused on previously collected customer engagement data and how we better utilise it. 

Here is a whistle stop of the “golden nuggets”:

1. Neighbourhood coaches are the bread & butter of place.

It may seem obvious, but it does still feel as though NC's tend to fly under the radar a little when we talk about place. NC's within this session who worked in Priors Park weren't yet seeing the full benefit of having a dedicated team or place lead like the place pilot areas had and this had led to frustration surrounding ownership, especially in terms of who is supposed to help them with the things they raise. Ultimately NC's know the places best as it is quite literally their job to immerse in the world and lives of the customers on their patch. It makes sense that the points they brought up were the most relevant to the place as often it comes straight from the customers they talk to or from what they directly see day to day. They provide the connections. They provide the view. They are on the ground. Without NC's we aren't truly bottom-up.

2. Early adopters are the key to spreading this thinking.

Again, it may seem obvious, but place was and still is only being adopted in its full capacity by a limited number of colleagues. Therefore, it has became more evident over time that this may make place feel very remote. Therefore, it was suggested that people within this session and part of pilots become knowledge banks and champions for work like this and actively try to spread what we learn and know to everyone else. Of course, everyone will have a different relationship with place eventually, depending on what their role is, but understanding these differences early on will be very important in the long-term and help to influence what everyone needs to know as we move out of our discovery phase and into full roll out.

3. We're not custodians

This one was really interesting. It became very clear throughout these sessions that battling the old way of working and the need for control will be one of the biggest challenges in the move towards place, simply because it's so ingrained. There have been many occasions where we've got carried away and started thinking of lots of solutions and new ideas to perceived problems, which in some ways is extremely positive, but it ultimately doesn't factor in the customer voice and still dilutes us down to being a service that's there to fix and not a member of the community that's there to help.

As place-based working develops it has become clear that we are working mostly in a grey area, where we don't know everything and that if we truly want to work in a bottom-up, strengths-based way we need to acknowledge that a places base-line is largely outside of our control. The needs and wants of a place have to be built upon rather than moulded into what we think it should be based on our own opinions, assumptions and surface level data.

Everyone commented that Priors Park was a close-knit, well connected community outside of what many organisations seem to discuss, a statement that is probably applicable to most other communities across the country, pointing towards how we need to be looking at the wider picture and not just “problem areas”. 

Month 4 (Jan 2026)

This session saw us back at the community church with a couple of new faces. The focus of this session was to get to the bottom of what a place plan is truly asking for. A lot of this revolves around language and developing an understanding of where we needed to draw influence.

There was a big focus on engagement this session, the main discussion centring around how we would go about including residents and other stakeholders in our conversations.

These are the questions we explored as a group, acting as a “learning swap”:

1. What's one thing you've learned/noticed about Priors Park that you didn't know before we started?  

2. What's one thing you've learned about developing a place-based approach? 

3.  What's one thing you're still unsure about?

4. What's one thing you think we should protect as we write a Place Plan? 

However the big question still remained of “Yes, these are OUR feelings, but what about the feelings of RESIDENTS?”

The next task was a more “word of mouth” focused activity that aimed to begin to address this question. We were split into 4 groups and members of each group who had had conversations about place and the work happening within Priors Park outside of the sessions were asked to feedback on the conversations they'd had, mainly addressing the following questions:

• What did you notice when having the conversation? 

• What felt easy about it? 

• What felt awkward about it?

• Was there anything that got in the way?

Post it notes were generated from this and then sorted into the following categories: 

• What helped

• What got in the way

• What we want to try next

The hope here was to begin to pinpoint the areas of flow, as well as sticking points within the conversations we have about place so that we can begin to move past simply talking about it into inspiring engagement with it's vision. Storyboarding it like this allowed us to see this transition visually, showing how we can navigate any stagnation within our conversations and get a better idea as to what really matters when we talk about it to others. An important quote from Rich on this segment:

"If you didn't do it, that's still valuable data. In place work, the barriers tell us as much as the stories."

Next, we heard from South Lichfield place lead, Helen Minchin and Scheme Officer Team Leader Ashley Crapp. They both shared a little about their roles; Helen went more into depth on what being a place team lead is like and how it has shaped her journey into place-based working so far and Ashley discussed his own experience in applying an asset based community lead approach.

Hearing from them both provided the rest of the group with first-hand accounts to take away about place which fulfilled an element of what they had thought helped create successful conversations around place which was “having first hand experience or examples". This also lead onto a larger point of where the buy-in from others would come in. It was identified in the previous task that the group felt “buy-in from influential people” was needed in order to make conversations around place work, however this task called in question who exactly is an “influential person”?

Yes - in many ways buy-in from leadership and the establishment of leadership roles like Helen's and Ashley's is a must as it will inspire trust and security in place-based working from others.

But, no - leadership does not automatically warrant influence and putting to much emphasis on leadership may find us looping back around into a top-down approach.

Instead Rich reframed Helen and Ashley as "critical friends"; people who are deemed bastions of knowledge in areas of interest through experience, so in this case place-based working and ABCD, who have an interest in sharing that knowledge and can rally others to do the same. This marks somewhat of the first breakdown of top-down thinking, where we acknowledge that whilst leadership is needed, it is not at the core of place-based working. That in the eyes of a bottom-up approach, leaders are part of the same community as everyone else but have the ability through their skillsets and knowledge to foster people's voices and mediate action, ensuring that people are seen, heard and valued for their opinions.

Pre-mortem (Future's Clinic)

The first major task of the day was a pre-mortem which Rich described as us reverse engineering the solutions to problems by starting with them. Hence the first thing we asked ourselves was: "If this goes wrong - why will it be?"

We then grouped all of the problems and negativity into clusters through common themes. The picture to the right is what we came out with.

We were then split off into small groups to workshop each cluster and come up with solutions based off of the problems we found.

I was in the group for organisational culture. We identified that the main solution was exactly what we'd identified in the “critical friends” discussion. That it was about leaders walking along-side the project and aiding in the change of language/core values that would make the most difference. 

We then had to look at what that solution may look like at varying points in the future like at; 3 months, 6 months and 1 year.

This is of course is a very simplified forward vision of a solution to a pretty complex problem but it does the job at capturing how we need to start thinking in terms of the obstacles we face within place.

Place Plan: Version 1

"We're going to build a first draft Place Plan together. It won't be perfect — it will be usable."

The group was split in half, each one tasked to define what the purpose of the place plan should be, starting with the prompt "In Priors Park we want to…". The only real parameters were that it had to be in clear, plain language, that it had to be community friendly and it had to be specific and not vague.

Then we were split off into 3 groups, each looking at doing something different with the ideas we'd generated.

Group 1: Was asked to simplify the purpose even further, taking both groups thoughts and combining them into one, clear definition, no more than a sentence or two.

Group 2: Was asked to come up with some principles that could help to give a broader perspective on how we work towards what we'd outlined as the purpose.

Group 3: Worked on our priorities moving forward, solid actions that will allow the purpose to come to fruition.

Clear, plain language means something universally understood and using words that are to corporate or still imply a difference in power didn't align with that. For example; we changed words like collaborative to together and changed empower to build. After a few drafts we began to find the focus which was on the voice of the community and we came out with the following:

"In priors park we are building a connected community where every voice is heard and valued."

Now that we had this, group 2 were invited over to present their principles and see how they compared against the narrowed down purpose. Both groups were entitled to suggest edits to eithers ideas to make them align better and some really good discussions were had. Most centred around the wording and tone of different elements and how they would look to someone outside of these sessions. The principles came out looking like this:

• Start with strengths - everyone has something to offer

• Work with what's already happening - networking is key

• Don't give up - have the confidence to revaluate 

• Find common ground - lead with togetherness 

Next group 3, who had been working on the priorities, arguably the most important part of the initial plan, fed back their findings. Instantly the priorities were less about concrete cause and effect and more about what olive branches could be put out there to encourage engagement with what we are doing and truly start progressing.

Once you combine all of the groups findings you come out with something like this:

Month 5 (March 2026)

This week saw the community church joint hosting with Noah's Ark Children & Family Centre; ran by the Aspire Foundation not even a 5-minute walk up the road. This week saw a slightly smaller group than normal but excitingly we were joined by a couple of long-time residents who were keen to learn what the session was all about and give their views. Rich was also accompanied once again by the wonderful Emily Brady-Young.

In this session we were tackling two main questions:

1. Now that we've agreed on the core message and objectives of Priors Park's 'place plan', what actions can we begin to take and how?

2. What have we learnt so far and how is it working to change the way we interact, build relationships and share understanding?

This week we started with small story sharing activity in pairs focusing on when in our life, we've seen positive change and how it resonated with us. This of course helped to break the ice for anyone new but also helped to establish where we were all at right at the beginning of the session, doing a good job at highlighting what we each hold value in and what drives us to do the work we do. I spoke a little with Ben Thompson in this time, one of our investment managers. He has been dipping in and out of Priors Park for a while, more specifically tied to the demolition of the garages in collaboration with Create Streets, which is happening very soon!

He shared with me how we viewed Place from an investment perspective and ultimately it all came down to how the corporate structure around investment would change to accommodate place-based working. This is something that has been discussed before, but it is proving to be a difficult question to answer at this stage in the process, mainly due to scale. Which is understandable, as investment is one of those branches of work that must think about the whole before making a decision, especially regarding policy and regulation. However, without place, the work around the garages in Priors Park would never have come to fruition so in truth we are seeing two sides of the same coin. I would love to see the discussion on this go further and perhaps see some more experiments to test to waters of investment in place.

Before being split off into two groups we were told to take a colour coded sticker and plot on a small timeline when we first attended these sessions, along with our name and job role. This may seem like a very simple task, but this will be used later down the line to collate how the landscape of the sessions has changed over time.

Group Work

1. Rich's Group - Stayed at the community church to explore what actions we can begin to take and come up with creative ways to execute them.

2. Emily's Group - Went over to Noah's Ark to discuss learnings so far.

These two groups would swap over in the PM.

The highlight of the session for me was a man who’d joined the session as a long-time resident (not a BFL customer) and community member. He explained that he was a retried social worker from Birmingham and had moved to Priors Park since. He started off by saying that “There has to be passion and love for the area.” which everyone else in the room immediately echoed. He went on to tell us anecdotes about work he’s done within the community, most notably;

• The installation of the chemist – which was just down the road from where we were. He explained it was something everyone in the community wanted for a while and he’d managed to be part of getting it delivered.

• Campaign for the nature reserve – had managed to get interest and eventually a petition for it started up in the local pubs and it took off from there.

• Advocacy for access – had had a few petitions rejected to improve the access residents had to their homes in Priors Park and as a result decided to get the local Fire and Ambulance crews involved on the grounds of them not having good access either which posed a huge safety risk. This alone managed to push it through and speed up its delivery. The left-over money from this got put back into the community garden.

• He’s Santa! - To all our surprise we learnt that he is one behind the Santa that goes through Priors Park every year. It’s like a small tradition for the area and another resident in the room even recalled her child chasing him down the street the year before.

Four incredibly powerful examples that left me in awe of his passion and dedication to his community and those around him. When asked about what motivated him, he simply answered that “These are real people and this is their home.” and “It’s about mutual respect.” He applied this same thinking to BFL and said that in his view with our “backup” a lot more stuff like this could happen and he’s right. He’s making the important point that we don’t always have to be providing a service; that sometimes all is needed is our support, using our influence where it matters to almost boost the community in the algorithm.

Something similar was described by another resident in our group. She told us that she initially baked cakes to encourage people to help her clean up the community garden, but how that naturally developed into community litter picking. There was a shared feeling that “fly tipping is everyone's problem” and it was tackled as such. She shared a lot with us, most of which I won’t go to deep into here as a lot of it was highly personal, but the key thing that stood out was her deep familial ties to Priors Park. She told us how her surname is a widely known one in the area, how her parents, herself and now her daughter have all grown up here, that when she moved out of Priors Park, she hated it because “no one spoke to each other, everyone just kept themselves to themselves.” What was most notable was how distinct the language used around Priors Park is; like how locals just call it “The Park” and how at school you’ll get called a "Parkey". In other words – a strong sense of identity.

BFL's Role

Now that we’d explored some stories, the middle part of the conversation seemed to centre around the role of leadership in all of this and BFL was used as the main example.

The first and most important sentiment the group shared was that BFL’s involvement is categorically helping, without a shadow of a doubt. Many said that they felt that this type of workshop would never have got off the ground if BFL hadn’t done the work to get it on its feet and without BFL’s name tied to it, many of the other perhaps bigger participants like Travis Perkins and the local council would have passed over it. BFL’s involvement has also inspired many who are part of the workshops to feel like this work is actually going to lead somewhere and multiple people in the group shared that they were pleasantly surprised by the attitudes of the BFL staff involved, saying it “feels more down to earth” and that “they really care”.

However, this feedback then leads onto the question of how we can keep that energy going; which is where the bugbears start to raise their heads. The ones raised below are just a few I picked up throughout the session;

1. Policy & regulations lock us away - makes everything feel very aloof and “unreachable”, promotes a “lack mindset” as you “prepare for rejection”, “firefighting mentality”

   
   Questions this created > Do we need to be more stubborn against poor policy? Do we need to be more creative in how we deal with roadblocks? Do we need to look for alternative routes or backdoors to get the outcomes we need and know customers deserve?

2. Lack of understanding/interest from leadership – settled on the notion that it constricts forward movement, work like this stops before it even starts in favour of “business as usual”, colleagues often lack the “breathing room” away from “day to day operations” to get involved, mention of “conflicting priorities”, merger has put more pressure on this, bit of a snake eating it’s only tail moment.

   
   Questions this created > Do we need to set aside time for project work and start quantifying it? (discussed a story of how one person quantifying their time doubled the money they got in a grant), Is a place lead the missing component or do colleagues just need "permission"? How can managers/leaders be more supportive?

3. We overcomplicate things – we overcomplicate what should be very straightforward issues and we expect customers to understand those self imposed complexities, customers are “very rarely told what's truly going on”, we tend to be defensive over our processes even though we are categorically being told it doesn’t work, leads to customers not feeling heard, we give “blanket no’s with zero explanation”, decision making isn’t being done on a “customer value” basis.

   
   Questions this created > Do we need to start “throwing around our weight more”?, Do customers recognise our influence more than we do? How can we start truly co-creating? Are we thinking through the lens of “mutual exchange” and “respect”? Why do we say no if we don't have an alternative to offer?

4. Shooting the messenger - Customers reach out when they “spy their chance” as reaching us is difficult, in most cases the person who is easiest to reach in any given moment is the NC meaning they then “take the brunt of the criticism” for failures outside of their control, often during face to face meetings.

   
   Questions this created > How do Neighbourhood Coaches think we can improve our customer relations seeing as they are some of the colleagues who spend the most time out in communities? How many office-based colleagues that deal with issues outside of the areas they effect are customer facing? How many leaders making decisions for areas are customer facing?

No one enjoys discussing the bugbears, but they need to be thought about in order to continue to inspire movement in the right direction and the questions raised can spark further discussion. Emily Brady-Young is keen to record and analyse these discussions as part of her own work to map out what this process looks like from a human perspective and potentially go as far as to create a forward vision of how this will develop based purely on behaviours, thoughts and actions we are currently taking. Real invaluable stuff.

Some positive takeaways:

This is now on a larger scale than just a community group – more and larger orgs are getting involved now which makes it feel more real and “tangible”.

There is more commitment – there's a tightly knit group behind this project now, that will keep it's momentum going through their connection

Community bingo – learning everyone has strengths/something to give

Place has provided connection outside of the corporate structure – if we live/work in the same place, might as well do it together

Place teams working well – Priors Park feel they are “missing the role of a place lead” to unlock extra capacity from what they've observed elsewhere in the business

Familiarity is highly valued – seeing the same faces leads to more accountability, more responsibility, a better view of everything that's going on, an easier time building relationships and allows place teams to be proud of their colleagues and area.

Rich's Group

When we swapped over to join Rich back at the community church we were first informed of what the other group had discussed in terms of action. They’d thought of creating some form of heatmap to locate areas of interest within Priors Park and identify catalysts of movement for people. This would work in a sort of tandem with the previously discussed asset maps, which Rich was also trying to come up with a way to visualise.

Our group started off with a chat about This IsTewkesbury, a yearly community day held in town showcasing local groups in art, sport, health, heritage, and more.It was agreed from those familiar with the event that it could feel a little corporate at times due to its location andthe way it's set up. To combat this, a member of the group from Tewkesbury RFC, proposed a community event held in Priors Park, using his own venue; the Rugby Club. He went on to say how it would be a good opportunity to give something back to community whilst also asking for feedback, potentially swapping it or stories in a submissions box in return for free entry or food vouchers at the event. This perfectly echoed the discussion around mutual exchange back at Noah's Ark. We all then started chipping into this idea, outlining more of what the event itself could look like as well as what we'd need to make it come to fruition.

The event's working title is "Party In The Park" and aims to be an event where people from every corner of the area can connect. We discussed everything things like what activities would be there, what food would be there, a timeline for organising it etc. Someone else came up with the idea of creating an art piece from rubbish in the area like other community projects have done online or even creating an asset map that looks like a "Priors Park monopoly board"; something that everyone could understand and contribute to. On the surface it may just seem like a “run of the mill community event” but this is an event created predominantly by the people who live there, using their own strengths and resources to do it, with shared aims to collect information on what their community want to see going forward.

As you can see a lot of learning happened in only 5 sessions together. This proves that meeting in person with a consistent group of people in a community is key to real, grounded discussion about what should happen within places. The work here is not finished by any means and there are countless other angles to explored in places that have completely different structures to Priors Park but this part of the process was a lot more about finding a rhythm and rough process to create outcomes like Party With The Park, which you can read our previous article about here.

Place plans are and should be developing entities, putting even more emphasis on leaving rigid short term goals behind in favour of a more shared long term vision.

Some resources we'd like to share from the previous articles:

TED Talks:

• Take a street and build a community: Shani Graham https://youtu.be/C1WSkXWSJac?si=k7pSbmrV1hozVVo8

• Sustainable community development: from what's wrong to what's strong | Cormac Russell Cormac Russell - Sustainable Community Development

Case Studies:

• Making it Happen – Community Focus (East Sussex)

• Nesta - ABCD for Local Authorities

ABCD Podcast Episode

A Short Summary Of ABCD