NEWS
Two new community development trusts have been set up to create community plans led by the community. Follow the links for more information and get in contact with them directly.
N15 Development Trust (Wood Green Road/Seven Sisters)
WGR & Seven Sisters working together with the community to support the local economy and further development in the best interests of the community as a whole.
Website: https://n15developmenttrust.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @n15devtrust
South Tottenham Community Development Trust (including the St Anns Site)
A new group in South Tottenham who want to reclaim public assets at risk of being sold off to private developers and give them back to the community.
Twitter: @stcdgroup
Aims of Community Planning Working Group
To promote community planning for sites, facilities and neighbourhoods throughout Tottenham, and a Community Plan for Tottenham as a whole
Useful documents
Our Tottenham DIY Community Planning Toolkit
Making Community Plans – Some key questions
Community Mapping Project
Meetings
Minutes 19th March 2014
Minutes 7th April 2014
Some thoughts on developing community visions and turning them into Plans
– Know and love your site / area / neighbourhood / facility – be an ‘expert’ on it, its history and its peoples…
– Organise a community/campaign group for the site – start meeting regularly open to all.
– Get to know exactly what the current plans are (if any) for the site/area, decide what the problems are, and whether a Community Plan for the site would strengthen the hand of local people
– Consider who owns / runs / makes decisions regarding the site or area, and try to engage or at least avoid any unnecessary conflict with them
– Engage local people, site users, local community groups and networks – spread a feeling of community ownership
– Think of the possibilities and potential, and Think Big in terms of what you want that addresses the real needs of the local community – real vision backed by practicalities.
– Maps are great – there are lots of kinds which excite people and explain existing or potential features
– Draft some positive ideas and options, and spread them around to raise the levels on interest and excitement
– Organise public consultation/empowerment events, questionnaires, meetings etc.
– Develop working groups: gather together all the incredible expertise, ability/initiative that exists in every community
– Start drafting a Community Plan! Don’t worry about perfection – just get it underway and it can be revised many times. It will need a physical vision / maps / drawings, some history of the site and the surrounding community, the reasoning for a Community Plan, details of the community involvement and support, identifying the key potential partnerships and future management structures, costings, timeline for implementation and so on. Put any existing or very detailed documents into the Appendices. The amount and sophistication of the detail may depend on the type of site, its size, how cooperative or otherwise the authorities are etc etc.
– Make sure at every stage you try to publicise the whole thing to everyone, remain relentlessly positive and be diplomatic with everyone at all times, be totally unfazed by all the obstacles that may get put in your way!
– Remember we deserve the best for our communities. If its good for the community, it should, must & can happen!