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By James Baggaley, 香港六合彩中特网 Policy Lab

On a sunny day in Heeley, you could be forgiven for forgetting that the community was once at the hot and dirty heart of Sheffield鈥檚 steel industry. The molten furnaces and tightly packed terrace housing were levelled in the 1980s, an early victim of de-industrialisation. What was left was a community with all the usual scars of post-industrial Britain.聽聽

Today Heeley is home to a new revolution, one that is being forged by citizens and melded by community leaders. A revolution that hasn鈥檛 just wrought economic success but also a social infrastructure that has given hope to a community and enabled it to withstand the storms of COVID-19 and the cost of living crisis.聽聽聽

This new approach is embodied in the . The Trust formed in 1996, was born from residents' desire to rebuild their community. To restore the soul to a place that had been counted out. The result was the Heeley Peoples Park. The park now sits at the heart of the community. Andy Jackson, the trusts manager is clear about the ambitions of that initial project.聽聽

鈥淭he community had been left with the physical scars of de-industrialisation. This was most clearly seen in a large stretch of land which ran right through Heeley. In those early days, regeneration in places like Heeley meant levelling unwanted homes and factories, filling in the basements, and that was that. But we didn鈥檛 think that was enough 鈥� we wanted to build something together as a community.鈥澛犅�

was born. The Park, which is now rich in trees and activity, is unusual鈥攏ot born not from the generosity of Victorian philanthropy but the shared ambition of a community. The process of securing a park became a catalyst for a new way of doing regeneration in Heeley.聽聽

鈥淲hen we got to designing and building the park, the idea was to try and consult everyone. We鈥檇 knock on their door 鈥楢re you sure you don鈥檛 have a view?鈥� 鈥榃hat could be done better鈥� we ran events, did planning for real, built 3 D Models together; It was about creating something that served the entire community鈥檚 needs but also gave people a stake in Heeley鈥檚 future.鈥澛�

Anyone who has ever encountered a government consultation will know that this kind of ambition to engage is rare鈥攖oo often seen as a task along the way as a pose to a tool for betterment. Consultations have the uncanny ability to come up with the same top-down plan proposed at the outset.聽聽聽

With the Heeley Peoples Park, the opposite was true. Consultation and design was about creating ownership of a process and a place. The result is a glorious green corridor connecting a community that once felt dislocated. But it hasn鈥檛 stopped with the park. What was planted in this first project was a belief in doing things differently.聽聽

Today the Heeley Trust help runs a co-working space bringing businesses into the community, a cycle workshop, a festival and a cultural programme to showcase the incredible talents of Heeley and Sheffield. And most recently, working to deliver social prescribing and public health services within the community 鈥� with incredible results.聽聽

鈥淭he COVID pandemic revealed so much about what was going wrong but also what could be done differently. Here in Heeley, we mobilised that social infrastructure we鈥檝e built up over the years. We wanted to make sure no one was left behind, we did shopping, collected prescriptions, supported community groups to move online and checked in with hundreds of our local contacts. But we ended up being one of the leads of our local vaccine programme. Delivering 32,000 vaccines and a really strong partnership with our Primary Care Network.鈥澛�

The results of this work are clear. Although Heeley, much like other post-industrial communities, continues to see deprivation driven by wider shifts in the UK economy, it has become a community where people are proud to live and eager to move. The businesses in the co-working space are vibrant and diverse in number. There is currently a waiting list for space.聽聽

Central to this renewal is ownership. And it鈥檚 where policy, both local and national, can make a clear difference鈥攖he rules of ownership, but also the sense that ownership gives to people and places. It's why campaigns such as聽 are clear about the need to allow聽communities to own assets.聽聽

Andy is clear about the role it can play.聽聽

鈥淎s we鈥檝e done more work, be it the community hub or cycle workshop or the festival 鈥� our ability to have a stake in our own future is key. Without ownership of the asset and the process, how can we unlock the energy and talent of our people?鈥澛�

The hope that is born of ownership and the implicit trust that it brings was recently explored at the launch of the 香港六合彩中特网 Policy Lab and the 听辫谤辞箩别肠迟 . How can politics and policy support ambitious grassroots programmes for change? What are the political implications and the economic challenges?聽

The opportunities, represented in Heeley seem clear. And underlined in the research of thinkers such as Dan Honig, who is exploring how empowering communities and officials can be transformative for outcomes.聽聽

鈥淭he community, those closest to a given problem, often understand best how to tackle it鈥�, says Dan. 鈥淧ublic servants often also want a different, better relationship with communities 鈥� in no small part because people who work for government are often are drawn to the work precisely because they want to help citizens lead better lives. The lowest hanging fruit to achieving better outcomes, in my view, is creating opportunities for empowered communities and supportive public servants to collaborate to achieve their shared goals.鈥澛�

What has been achieved in Heeley isn鈥檛 easy. Andy and others in the community make clear the challenges of trying to build shared projects, which by their nature will mean different things to different people. But as Dan Honig makes clear in his research, trusting people can have remarkable results.聽聽

As Andy puts it what has happened in Heeley is a vision of what the UK can do at a national level.聽聽

鈥淲hatever our political allegiances, I think most people are clear that we need to rebuild the country. That should be the ambition of any government 鈥� and it鈥檚 our ambition at a local level. Rebuilding for something better鈥澛�

There鈥檚 hope in the hills of Heeley. And perhaps even a plan for how we can all have a stake in rebuilding Britain.聽聽

To find out more about the Ordinary Hope project in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation,聽contact James Baggaley (j.baggaley@ucl.ac.uk).听