As a well-established and enthusiastic Neighbourhood Management Board, we continue to progress and get involved in a huge variety of local issues. In April we welcomed Pushpa Patel as our Assistant Neighbourhood Manager, who brings with her a wealth of experience from working on the St Peters Neighbourhood Management team. We also reviewed membership of the Board, which resulted in Terry and Kellie being re-elected as resident Chair and Vice-Chair; and two new Board members representing Saffron Young People’s Project and Saffron SureStart. I would like to thank all our Board members for their continued commitment and willingness to get involved in pretty much anything that is suggested!
We ended the last financial year by distributing the last of our funding under our small grants and partnership/leverage grants programmes. In all, during 2007/08 we awarded 33 individual grants to local groups and organisations to the tune of £77,000 for a huge variety of projects and initiatives that each make a contribution towards addressing the targets in our Neighbourhood Delivery Plan. We know from feedback locally and working daily with resident groups and organisations that Neighbourhood Management has made a big difference in how they have been able to deliver services to residents in Saffron. However, often we are so busy doing the work we rarely make the time to tell everybody about it! Therefore, we are in the process of working with each recipient of Neighbourhood Management funding to gather clear information and photographs showing how their grant was used and what benefit it has brought to the neighbourhood. Later in the year we will publish a “portfolio of achievements” that will bring all this information together and let everyone know the positive impact we are making in the community!
We are currently developing a door-to-door information and consultation project called “Keeping Saffron Involved” (a sister project to our very popular community envelope scheme “Keeping Saffron Posted”). At the moment we are bringing local workers together who have agreed to commit 4 hours per month to door knock in a few streets in the Neighbourhood Management area. At each doorstep we will ask a few questions to help us gather data about satisfaction levels in the area but will also concentrate on asking about the needs of members of the household in order that we can provide information and make direct referrals to local services. As this project progresses organisations will suggest issues on which they would like to consult residents, as well as provide them with information.
In April we carried out a review of our Neighbourhood Delivery Plan and decided the main themes that we want to concentrate on this year. Alongside ongoing community engagement activities, it was agreed that we would continue to support local work already being taken forward in terms of housing, health and crime and community safety. For example, the Neighbourhood Policing Team are currently prioritising speeding traffic and the use and supply of class A and B drugs and we are actively working together to develop initiatives that will address these issues. We have also recently brought together all the organisations providing any sexual health advice in Saffron with a view to coordinating this provision better and producing a clear shared information leaflet for local people.
In the area of education and young people we are working at both the strategic and operational levels in the development and roll out of Integrated Services Hubs for children and young people in the South Leicester network area. This includes active involvement in the development of extended services provision in and around local schools and will hopefully bring together the community involvement (and governance) that is already taking place in existing structures such as Neighbourhood Management, SureStart and local parent’s groups.
In the area of employment and skills we want to try to improve the provision of employment advice and guidance and support better coordination locally, as well as encouraging more participation in learning and other pathways to work, possibly through direct referrals during Keeping Saffron Involved.
The proposed Health and Joint Services Centre for the former Newry/Southfields school site brings a fantastic opportunity for Saffron. The investment of £8.3million and prospect of influencing the design of the building and the way services will be provided is a unique opportunity. We hope to see improved service provision and delivery that is designed to truly meet the needs of Saffron residents.
Nicola Bassindale
Neighbourhood Manager
See also:
