Love Where You Live | Leeds Impact Report 2020 - 2021

Love Where You Live s l l i h e r a H d n a A rmley, Beeston I M PAC T R E P O RT 2 019-2021

Contents Introduction • Outline and purpose • Context

Project set up • Initial meetings • Proposed objectives • Contract

Approach • Insight gathering • Workshops • Events and community meetings • Case study: ASHA centre painting and planting workshop • Case study: community meeting at St Lukes’ CARES, Beeston • Summary of key project outcomes

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Challenges • Covid-19 pandemic • Time of year • Stakeholder relationships • Alleyway characteristics • Access and safety • Community characteristics

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Key recommendations Additional resources

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Introduction Outline & Purpose The purpose of this document is to share some of the learnings from the Love Where You Live project in Leeds which ran from 2019 – 2021. This will outline what worked well and where improvements could be made to help shape future projects and community work in the area. It must be noted that this is a broad overview and anyone who would like to know more about the project can contact Nick Lawrence from Leeds City Council or Abi Arden at Hubbub Foundation for more.

Context Using factors such as flytipping data, local knowledge and ward member input, three inner city streets within Leeds were chosen for the Love Where You Live projects: Back Stratford Terrace in Beeston LS11, and Back Nowell Terrace in Harehills LS8 and Back Nunnington Street in Armley LS12. These streets are characterised by terraced properties with small yards that back on to shared alleyways. A significant proportion of the properties in the streets were rented, attracting a mix of local, eastern European and south Asian culturally diverse communities. During the period of the project, the pandemic and Brexit had some impact on the stability of the communities and levels of engagement with the project. 4

Project set up Initial meetings Following conversations with Leeds Communities Team, Hubbub spoke to several local councillors and the relevant Council Community Engagement Officers responsible for the areas that had been recommended. This helped to gain a better understanding of what, if any, initiatives had already been trialled to address the issue of fly-tipping and litter. Insights from these initial meetings were used to shape the project objectives.

Proposed objectives • To reduce fly-tipping and litter in the alleyways. • To engage with residents, bringing people together and strengthening the sense of local pride and community.

• Improve the overall appearance and reputation of the neighbourhood.

Contract A letter of agreement (LOA) between Hubbub Foundation UK (“Hubbub”), Leeds City Council, and Groundwork was drawn up. The LOA set out the roles and responsibilities of each organisation for the Love Where You Live campaign in Leeds.

Approach The project was formed through an extensive period of insight gathering, workshops and events.

Insight gathering The initial insight gathering took place via doorknocking and litter picks on the selected streets. Questions were asked to establish how long residents had lived on the street, what they liked and disliked about their area and what they wanted more of in their neighbourhood. Leeds City Councilor for Hunslet and Riverside Ward, Paul Wray and Leeds City Council’s Waste and Recycling Advisors took part in some of the doorknocking sessions and litter picks, offering specific advice to any technical recycling and waste queries from residents. Leaflets and posters were printed in the six most spoken dialects in each neighborhood and delivered whilst the team were door-knocking. These included the contact details of the local coordinator so that residents who were not home or preferred to communicate via phone or email could do so.

The project team also spoke to local community leaders such as the neighborhood Imam in Armley and wellrespected community organisers such as Zaheda Khanam who manages the ASHA Neighborhood Centre in Beeston, a social enterprise specialising in adult education and English lessons for women and children in the area. This method of gathering insights was time-intensive but important for building trust with the residents and raising the profile of the project. These conversations were synthesised, coded and recurring themes were drawn out by the project team.

Workshops A series of workshops were held in order to bring neighbours together and hear more about what they wanted to see in their area. The workshops had a secondary benefit of making residents more familiar with spending time in the alleyways.

Workshops included: • Fence repair and painting • Planter making workshops using wooden pallets and old car tyres

• Seasonal planting sessions • Kids activities including hopscotch and skipping

Events & Community meetings The Love Where You Live team organised a stall at the Beeston Hil Festival in 2021 to meet with local people and raise awareness around the project. This led to new relationships being forged such as with St Lukes’s CARES charity shop located near to Back Stratford Street where the project was located.

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Case study ASHA Neighbourhood Centre painting and planting workshop

What worked well

A painting and planting workshop was organised with ASHA Neighborhood Centre in Beeston in September 2021. The project team were keen to work with the centre as it backed onto the alleyway along Back Stratford Street and because it was frequently referred to as a trusted and familiar space for the community.

• Communication – The ASHA centre has a few multilingual

• Attendance - There was a high level of attendance partly

because women were coming to the centre anyways for courses that were taking place and the project team made it easy for them to take part even if just for 30 mins after the course had ended. staff which were on hand to do any translating that was required.

• Good facilities at the centre including a toilet and access Main outcomes of the workshop • The centre’s back garden was completely

transformed from a space that had been neglected and overlooked into a colourful and bright garden with a herb garden and 3 recycled tyre planters.

• 24 women of all ages took part in the workshops. • New connections were created with some women

to hot water made the event more comfortable and sociable as people stayed for a cup of tea and chatted, taking it in turns to paint and plant.

• The location of the ASHA centre in the middle of Back Stratford Street was a real asset as it led to many neighbours walking by and asking questions about the project and how they could get involved.

meeting for the first time.

• Information about seasonal planting was shared and activities were provided for children on the street.

Areas for improvements • Try and run the workshop during the school holidays so more children could attend.

• Not all the women who visited

the centre lived on the street so not all the women who took part were concerned with the wider development of the alleyway beyond the ASHA centre.

Case study Community meeting at St Luke’s CARES, Beeston

• Door knocking - Door knocking a few days before a

community meeting is a good way to remind people who might have seen the leaflet but forgotten.

• Multiple meetings - Suggestion: if you’re able to have Towards the end of the project a community meeting was held at St Luke’s CARES charity shop near Back Stratford Street. The purpose of the meeting was to hear from residents who had taken part in workshops and activities, invite interested locals who wanted to find out more and a broader aim of creating a community group to maintain and continue the project objectives. This meeting reinforced some key factors to consider when hosting community events. These include:

• Leaflets - Make sure there are contact details on the

leaflet that you hand out so people can share their opinions via email or text if they are unable to make the event in person.

meetings on consecutive weeks this could be one way round the issue, giving people a second chance to turn up. When the project team hosted the community meeting there were a few events that took place that were out of their control such as a big community funeral and a big storm on the night of the meeting. Having an additional date would have given more people the opportunity to attend.

• Timings: useful to have meeting during the day and after work – found near equal spit some people could attend the former and others the later.

• Location - Consider the space that the event is taking

place and make sure it is somewhere that all residents feel comfortable and welcomed. Whilst working with the ASHA Neighbourhood Centre was helpful for engaging women and children in the local area, some men we spoke to admitted that they didn’t think men were allowed in the centre and had not been before. St Luke’s CARES charity shop provided to be a great location for this event and it was close to Back Stratford Street and open to all. This contrasts to ASHA centre which a few residents described as “just for women”.

y e k f o y r a Summ s e m o c t u o t projec New connections in the community were formed from workshops and events.

Over 20 litter picks.

3 community meetings.

Notable reduction in litter collected during litter picks over the course of the project.

How To Guide created and shared with partners and local community groups.

Led to St Luke’s CARES being selected to receive funding from Amazon’s community grant.

Challenges There were some significant challenges that impacted the success of the project. Here the main challenges are outlined so that insights and learnings can be shared.

Covid-19 pandemic The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 and subsequent lockdowns meant that the project had to be put on pause on multiple occasions to accordance with UK Government guidelines. Based on NHS risk factors and deprivation all 3 areas that the project was working in were in the six Covid priority wards for the city. This meant that we had enhanced infection prevention controls in the area. This limited the amount of momentum the project could build and led to some residents becoming wary to engage as many were shielding from Covid-19 or were anxious that another lockdown would soon be imposed, making the work “pointless” to quote one resident in Beeston. As well as concerns around safety, the Covid-19 pandemic had a big financial impact on the communities that we were working with as many residents found themselves unable to work. It is understandable that there was less interest in taking part in the alleyway project in the periods between the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns as many residents admitted being concerned for their health, family and financial situation. 20

Time of year A direct consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic and government lockdowns was that project activities had to be rescheduled and could not all go ahead as planned during the summer months. For example, the team noticed how projects in September 2021 had a lower attendance than previous activities in July 2019 during the school holidays when more families were at home.

Stakeholder relationships An important learning of the project team was to properly map out the various stakeholder relationships in each area, especially between councillors from key political parties. In Beeston, there were a few times when concerns were raised as to whether the community work was being coopted for political gains. There were occasions when a ward councillor and an opposition political candidate were invited to events by the project team, where the complexity of existing tensions between the individuals were not fully appreciated.

One res

ident ex plained situatio the n to our team “...even if we di d come it’ll pro out, bably b e l o ckdown again s oon and things w get bad ill . People g o (in lock t lazy down) a nd will j dump th ust eir rubb i s h again when th e tips c lose.” 21

Alleyway characteristics The alleyway along Back Stratford Street was very long and sloped which meant that it took approximately 90 mins to visit each house on each side of the street (factoring in time for conversations on the door-step). This was not only time intensive for the local co-ordinator who was often working alone, the length of the alleyway resulted in it feeling like three or four separate alleyways in one. This made it much harder to engage residents in a sense of collective ownership. A recommendation for future projects would be to find shorter alleyways that have higher walls to help create a sense of privacy for the community and safety for any children that want to play in these spaces.

Access and saftey The project team found that commercial vehicles were often parked in the alleyways and building work was frequently taking place within houses. The presence of these vehicles limited the space for activities but also added an element of danger and disruption as building materials including ladders and poles were being carried up and down the alleyways whilst workshops with children were being run.

Community characteristics High levels of deprivation reduced levels of engagement in the project. The three alleyways were located in areas classed as being within the 10% most deprived in England, according to the indices of deprivation. A significant proportion of the properties in the streets were rented with high levels of transitoriness. This reduced a sense of ownership amoung residents and made re-starting the project after the first Covid-19 lockdown challenging as some of the people who were previously engaged in the project had left the area.

The areas we were working in had double the average diversity of Leeds with residents from a mix of culturally diverse communities such as in Beeston where 38.2% of residents were from a minority ethic background compared to 18.9% in Leeds as a whole. This was something that some residents celebrated such as in Armley at the street celebration when local resident Arjun remarked “It’s days like this when we can learn more about our neighbours... I’m looking forward to celebrating Diwali with everyone.” However it also presented challenges as conversations on the doorstep were harder with residents who did not speak English. Additionally, we found that in many households we were not permitted to speak to the women of the house without a man of the family being present, having a direct impact on the number of women and children who were able to attend events and workshops.

Key recommendations • Identifying a stable mix of owner-occupier and rented residents may provide a stronger legacy to building community rather that choosing the ‘worst’ alleyways that get the most complaints, unless working within a wider multi-agency approach is needed that will take extended time to resolve the underlying issues including finance, health and employment.

• The size, length and shape of the alleyways are important to consider.

• Team up with local organisations for workshops and key meetings.

• Use the knowledge and experiences of key community leaders.

• Ensure there is budget to translate all leaflets

and ideally pay a translator to attend some of the workshops and door-knocking days.

• Ensure an environmental audit is carried out before

and after the project so that you are able to clearly track the impact. Take plenty of ‘before’ photos of the alleyways so that progress can be tracked.

Additional resources If you would like to find out more about the campaign or are interested in setting up your own #LoveWhereYouLive project please head to hubbub.org.uk/lovewhereyoulive where you’ll be able to find out about previous projects in Oldham, Doncaster and Manchester and download our communities How To Guide with step-by-step instructions on how to replicate key aspects of the campaign. 26

Thank you To learn more about this project email us at hello@hubbub.org.uk