While the government has been keen to encourage us back into pubs and restaurants to spend money, if we are to truly recover from the trauma and disruption of COVID-19 we need to nurture the spaces in which we can come together with friends and neighbours on an equal basis, without cash changing hands. This type of ‘social infrastructure’ is fundamental to making neighbourhoods good places to live. It provides the networks and services that keep people well and help communities cope with adversity.
Groundwork’s Growing Spaces report explores three community hubs in Blackpool, Kettering and Northwich. Though each of them is unique, they share a series of recognisable – and replicable -features and deliver similar outcomes for people and the environment.
Each of them is fundamentally a social space, helping people to broaden their networks and foster a sense of belonging. Everyone who comes to the community hubs is treated as a volunteer, rather than a beneficiary, and their contribution is valued, helping to build their confidence. People come to the community hubs from all walks of life, often meeting people that they would never otherwise cross paths with.
The community hubs often act as steppingstones, helping people learn new skills and move on into work or education. For example, several of the members of staff at the community hubs were originally volunteers and were offered paid work when it became available. Other people have been supported to move into higher education or to learn new skills which led to them setting up their own business.
When you speak to volunteers at each of the three community hubs, the positive impact of spending time there on their health and wellbeing is always a prominent topic. People speak about the way volunteering has helped them to manage mental health issues and how being involved in community gardening helps their physical fitness. Grozone plays host to horticultural wellbeing courses and all three hubs have the potential to help many more residents through social prescribing.
As well as helping local people, the presence of a community hub can improve the local environment. Each of the three hubs in this report includes a community garden, which promotes connection to nature and horticultural skills. Volunteers make use of the skills learned in the hubs to ‘green’ the local area and get involved in environmental action. @TheGrange has become a focal point for developing community-led action on climate change in Blackpool and Groundwork is supporting local volunteers to secure funding for a project contributing to the local authority’s climate emergency plan.
Of course, the COVID-19 lockdown forced the community hubs to pause their usual activities and adapt to support their communities in new ways. Some activities moved online, with tips on growing vegetables shared on social media and youth work delivered by phone or online. @TheGrange became a hub for Blackpool Council’s community relief effort, co-ordinating food parcels, making calls to people at risk of isolation and keeping spirits up through delivering Easter Eggs and home growing kits to families. After the council food parcels stopped, @TheGrange set up its own ‘meals on wheels’ service to make sure isolated people get a hot dinner and pudding. The Green Patch set up a donations tent so that residents could continue to access donated food and other goods, growing kits and vegetable boxes in a safe and socially distanced way.
So what are the preconditions for a successful community hub? There is no single blueprint but there are ways of working that can maximise their sustainability and impact. Most community hubs rely on mixed funding models and a ‘critical mass’ of overlapping service delivery is important to achieve a base level of stability. Hubs must also be genuinely community-led, with professional support and facilitation providing a platform for resident-led decision making and voluntary community action. They also need access to specialist resources to support the most vulnerable local residents and to make sure they are creating community resilience, rather than dependency. A supportive local authority that buys into the vision, co-locates services and helps hubs to access funds can play a crucial role in their success.
If we are serious about a green recovery from COVID-19 that tackles health inequalities, this type of social and environmental infrastructure must be recognised as having equal importance to ‘grey infrastructure’. With the proper resources, these hubs can play a key role in rebuilding social connections and reversing the isolation that many people have experienced during lockdown.
Fay Holland is policy and research executive at Groundwork