Projects

Making it happen

There are currently real efforts being made to involve people in what’s going on in their neighbourhoods and local authorities.  But after years of hearing about new strategies, development plans and professional consultations, it can be difficult to make this happen.

The Government Office for the South West decided to take a bold approach towards community participation, especially looking for ways to improve community safety in it’s region. Early in 2005, GOSW asked the Centre for Public Innovation to help launch and run a Community Change Programme  to find and fund local sparkplug activists to work closely with several Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs).

GOSW made available some £60,000 in 2005 to be used as grants for community projects in four CDRPs. Read more about it here.

The results were so good that the programme is running again in 2006 and was launched at GOSW’s conference in May. And this year, there’s extra help from the Prince’s Trust to make sure that young people take part too.