The Llanrhian Connected Community is an initiative that uses grant funding to employ two part-time community link officers, who are helping to create a stronger and more resilient local community.
Activities include running local events, amplifying existing local community group efforts, and a sharp focus on communications across the area.
Working alongside me and other local volunteers, it’s showing what can be done when we as ‘the institution’ let go and try safe-to-fail innovation techniques in local communities.
With demand rising for local government services, yet resources stretched, I wanted to see what could be achieved in my own ward to help the shift from ‘managing need’ to ‘creating capability’.
While it’s still early days, and this is very much a long-term project – although, frustratingly, funded on an annual basis – we now have a benchmark for resident satisfaction, and a demonstrable increase in volunteer hours and the number of active citizens.
In addition to the everyday acts of kindness we promote, we have developed a vision for the future that includes housing and environmental stewardship.
If councils want communities to do more for themselves, they need to allocate time, resource and expertise.
Councils can’t keep on ‘managing crisis’; they have to create the headspace to act and plan for the future – and communities can and want to be a part of that.
The leadership ‘ask’ of councillors is adaptive, and we need to use our relationship-building, partnership working, and influencing skills to the best of our ability.
Working with communities can be complex, difficult and unpredictable, but hugely rewarding. As a cabinet member with a new communities portfolio, I’m looking forward to applying these principles on a wider scale, to connect the good intentions and resources of the council and its partners with the local know-how and community activism that exists – for the benefit of us all.