In May of 2022, we were commissioned by Stoke North Big Local to help develop their 2025 plan to spend the last of the £1 million fund given to make Stoke an even better place to live!
In 2013 Stoke North Big Local was given £1 million by the Big Lottery to make their local area an even better place to live. This has paid for community events and activities, support for people struggling with debt, help to get the growing field developed, and emergency food provision during the pandemic with 100k set aside for the soon-to-be-built new skate park. About 350k of the original budget remains, and a social enterprise called ‘Your Back Yard’ has been commissioned by the Big Local to help them develop their next, and last, 3-year plan which will us through to the end of the programme in 2025.
This included extensive consultations with the public and local communities and organisations. We have spoken to community groups, partnership members and partner organisations, about ideas to invest the remainder of the money to improve the area.
Within our plan we:
- researched a socio-economic profile of Stoke North, summarising recent statistics covering topics such as deprivation, young people, cost of living, fuel poverty, COVID and social isolation, Crime, Education and employment, Transport and the Environment
- summarised our survey data from surveying local people and local schools which had a combined over 30 respondents
- we find it particularly important to involve the local youth as they often have a wealth of opinions and big ideas!
- A summary of our 20 Semi-structured interviews with partnership members, stakeholders and partner organisations.
Looking at all this, we then curate a plan with ideas, within budget with potential stakeholders on how to improve the area. We are so proud of this community planning work we do and we can’t wait to see the improvements in the Stoke North Area!
