Last week GGT were honoured to be visited by Baroness Hilary Armstrong and some of the fantastic team at ICON – the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods. The visit followed on from our event at the House of Commons last year, and we were delighted to introduce the group to some of our community partners and the neighbourhoods we work alongside.
First stop was Poets Pantry in Podsmead where Volunteer Manager Terry gave an insight to the food club managed by the pantry and some of the local challenges with food poverty. Podsmead Big Local members also talked about critical importance of the planned regeneration to the area.
We then visited the site of the new Blackbridge Community and Sports Hub in Podsmead, which will be the legacy of Podsmead Big Local and will bring a huge boost for health and wellbeing and youth work in the area, supported by GGT.
After a brief tour of Gloucester Services and an overview of our partnership with Westmorland Family, in which we both have a stake in the business at Gloucester Services and how it is run, we began a roundtable discussion with some of our community partners on some of the challenges and opportunities facing our neighbourhoods.
Dawn from The Venture Community Hub talked about some of the years of turbulence in White City when new builds came as part of regeneration and how that impacted the community, but the community spirit remained strong.
An insightful quote from the conversation was: “If you don’t think about people, you can’t affect regeneration. People will feel trusted and enthusiastic if we get communities right”.
All were in agreement about how things don’t happen over night and it was the trust that communities build that really make a difference, and community spaces are increasingly more important and used by groups of multi-generational residents – and so form a really vital consideration in any regeneration plans.
It also shone through in the discussion how much community partners believe in people and their imagination to power new regeneration ideas that affect their communities, but sometimes feeling they are gatekept.
The conversations also talked about opportunities within communities, and GGT reinforced what is a fundamental principle of our organisation and partnerships – the importance of empowering and enabling people to follow through on their aspirations and creative ideas to make positive lasting change.
Reflecting on the visit Baroness Hilary Armstrong said: “I was delighted to see first hand the positive impact Gloucestershire Gateway Trust has on local residents. I look forward to taking the experiences and voices of local residents into the work of the Commission as we make the case for how we can do more support people to improve their local neighbourhoods.”