RESULTS OF PHASE 2: THE CONSULTATION SYNDICATES
SME-City: About the project
Share My City’ (SME-City) is a new project funded by the European Commission. Its main objective is to understand why and how anti-social behaviour happens in our inner cities and to explore ways of reducing anti-social behaviour and related crime. The UK partner is Arcola Research, an independent organisation based in Hackney, London. The project has four main phases: a Research Phase (Phase 1); a Consultation Phase (Phase 2); a Pilot Phase (Phase 3); a Dissemination Phase (Phase 4).
What are the consultation syndicates?
Arcola Research has finished Phase 1 of the project. In this first phase we did some research to identify and understand patterns of crime and anti-social behaviour in London.
In Phase 2 we consulted with a range of different community groups in Hackney to discuss these results and to ask the community for ideas on how to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour.
We consulted over 250 people from a wide range of agencies and groups in the community – including the Council, the police, residents associations, youth organisations and local businesses.
We then ran four Community Workshops (Consultation Syndicates) with different groups in Hackney. We followed up these workshops with some individual interviews
This consultation process came up with a number of ideas for Phase 3 – running a pilot project to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour in Hackney.
The Ideas
‘Nite Watch’ – a mobile service that travels round to different Hackney ‘hot spots’ and provides integrated on-demand support for people in need, for example homeless people, street drinkers.
‘Inclusion Project’ – an ‘action research’ initiative that involves ‘problem groups’ like street drinkers in taking ‘ownership’ of their environment and in making decisions about it. Members of the local community take on a role of ‘mentoring’ the target group and local businesses take part in a scheme to provide incentives to support the target group in changing their behaviours.
‘I am Invaded’ – an ‘action learning’ project to open out Gillett Square to enable its use as a recreational area by a wider spectrum of local people. The project combines awareness-raising actions (for example school programmes on anti-social behaviour) with practical activities like a local-authority approved taxi service for people finding it hard to get home.
‘Juice Night’ – an initiative to provide high quality, attractive gigs and festival programmes for young people who either are legally banned from using alcohol or who just don’t want to drink. The programme would explore ways of reducing risk for promoters – for example through a ‘levy’ on local bars and clubs or an indemnity scheme.
‘Reclaim the Square’ – another project with a focus on Gillett Square. The main objective is to increase use of the square by a broader and more representative spectrum of local people, combining more targeted policing with outreach work and greater community representation in decision-making over how the square is used.
‘Urban Wildlife’ – an initiative aimed at understanding how and why particular groups – like street drinkers and homeless people – get blamed and demonised as the main cause of inner city anti-social behaviour. The project will use this understanding to work with these groups and other community members to support shared understandings and equal participation in decision-making over how the urban environment can be used to benefit everyone.
‘Community Conversation’ – this builds on work that Hackney Council have already been carrying out to support people mainly from Hackney’s housing estates in having more say on how to improve their communities. It involves ‘community conversations’ in different neighbourhoods to develop small-scale neighbourhood improvement projects.
‘People for Change’ – this aims to change the culture of local areas from a culture of mistrust and isolation to a culture of collaboration and action for change. It focuses on creating the conditions to support direct action to improve the local environment by the citizens themselves – for example through environmental improvements, public art projects, improving children’s playgrounds.
‘Grass roots empowerment’ – this focuses on building community cohesion from the bottom up – estate by estate. It aims to identify young people – and other community stakeholders – with leadership potential, and provide them with the training to apply their creativity and skills to develop their communities.
Next Steps
What we want to do next is to get as many people as possible from Hackney to comment on these Ideas, and to vote on which one should be taken forward to the next stage of the project.
Why not vote now?
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