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Partnership Managers Report
Southey and Owlerton Area Regeneration Board
Report Cover Sheet
Report Name: Partnership Manager’s Report
Consultation History: NA
History: This monthly report gives the board an overview of the key activities and initiatives being pursued by the SOAR Team and the Neighbourhoods.
Recommendations:
The Board is therefore recommended to:
Þ Note the Lottery money (£1.4m) for the Library Learning Centre
Þ Note the contents of the report
Author: Ian Drayton and the SOAR Team
Date: 2-11-07
PARTNERSHIP MANAGER’S REPORT
OBJECTIVE 1 – To engage local people and local organisations in the decisions that affect the quality of their lives:
1.1 Neighbourhood Action Groups
Þ Parson Cross market project and roving markets in the SOAR area (No Change).
Þ Parson Cross Festival was a huge success in spite of poor weather. Attendance at the event estimated at 5000-6000. SOAR consulted on Theme groups and 5Alive magazine with two new volunteers recruited to the Magazine’s editorial board
Þ A part time Development Worker, (18hrs per week) has been recruited to Parson Cross Forum (subject to references) to drive forward community development and support Norma. This will be Richard Belbin
Þ Longley (LOCAL) will be holding a Christmas Fayre on 24th November at the Longley Four Greens Centre
Þ Foxhill Health and Fun Day was a great success with attendance numbering the thousands.
Þ Hillsborough and Owlerton. The new Neigbourhood Worker, Nick Waterfield has been appointed and has begun work
Þ Southey – Ian is delivering Governance Training on the afternoon of 9th November
Þ SOAR are currently working in partnership with Lindsay Smith of Sheffield City Council to develop a robust Action plan for Shirecliffe Forum for the next 12 months. This will help the Forum to refocus its energy and address key issues in the community
Theme Groups.
Þ Healthy Living Network and Theme Group. Due to time restraints over funding and problems with recruitment, SOAR has directly contracted with Dawn Young on a freelance basis to deliver the Older People’s Physical Activity. She will sub contract part of the delivery work to Andy Bennett. The next EPHP Small Grants Panel will provisionally meet on the 27th November 2007 to review applications.
Þ Cultural Strategy Theme Group The Group is now working directly with staff from Lidl Supermarkets to develop a piece of art work to be included on the Halifax Road site when the store is redeveloped. Current plans are to include a “sculpture” in the environmental garden which will incorporate bird boxes that will be monitored by webcams linked to schools’ website and to SOAR’s website. Plans for next year’s Festival of Creativity are well underway with a bid being submitted to the Arts Council shortly to fund a Festival Co-ordinator.
Þ Adult Skills, Work and Enterprise Theme Group. Community North Forum and Sue Lowry (Enterprise Champion) attended the last ASWE meeting. The mission statement has been refocused and the meetings have changed to bi-monthly instead of every 6 weeks.
Þ Community Action Theme Group. This group is working in Partnership with Chaucer School and Age Concern to bring together older and younger people to celebrate Veteran’s Day. The event will be called ‘We’ve Met Again’ and will be held on 7th December. The Theme Group is now in discussion with Cultural Strategies concerning a merger of the two Theme Groups.
Þ Housing, Crime and Community Safety Theme Group. This group had a stall at Parson Cross Forum’s Open Meeting on September 17th; the event was themed on crime and community safety. Ways of using the Theme Group as a key incident reporting mechanism to the police and Sheffield Homes are currently being discussed.
Þ Environment and Liveability Theme Group. The group had a successful litter pick in Parson Cross Park in August and is concentrating on climate change and recycling at the next meeting. It is also supporting a bus tour for local residents of the parks and green spaces within the area.
1.2 Community Engagement Events
· The Community Representatives meeting was held on Thursday 18th October immediately before the SOAR AGM to look at the roles of Chair and Vice Chair on the Board. The meeting was informal with no minutes being taken, but Louise Nield was chosen as the sole representative from among the Community Reps to be put forward as Chair of the Board and Rev Ian Smith as Vice Chair.
· Planning for the SONY Awards 2008 has already begun with Sheffield Homes and the Area Panel, committed as partners. The date for the event has been revised to 25th January in an effort not to clash with other New Year events.
· SOAR staff travelled to Grimsby to meet with staff from the Community Press Office to share knowledge and ideas regarding community magazine production
· SOAR’s Engagement Team attended the Healthy Cross AGM at St Thomas More’s Church on 17th October.
· The turning of the turf took place at Foxhill on 23rd October. The event was very well attended by local people, Forum members, representatives of Foxhill TARA, staff from Sheffield City Council and Artisan.
1.3 Neighbourhood Arrangement pilots
Þ Service Districts – (No Change) Ian D receives invites to the meetings but is not prioritising attendance.
Þ Parson Cross – The Local Implementation Group now meets monthly to address issues raised by the survey. The October meeting focused on actions and activities agreed at the previous meetings. The first One Stop Surgery in Old Parson Cross will be held on the same day and in the same place as the Margetson Market on the 15th December in St Thomas Mores Church.
Þ Liveability – (ongoing) SOAR’s engagement team and the Liveability engagement worker are working together to re-invigorate the Environment and Liveability Theme Group and to attract more resident involvement. The plan might be to leave the current Theme Group meetings for agency involvement but to have an extra bi-monthly themed meeting for residents i.e. walks in the park, climate change etc.. These plans will be taken to the next Theme Group meeting for discussion.
Þ SOAR Engagement Team and the Liveability team are working in partnership on a SOAR in Bloom project (on-going). They are working with different neighbourhoods to enter community gardens into next year’s Lord Mayor’s Awards.
Þ (ongoing) SOAR and Natalie Hunt of OFFER are in the process of developing a How Our Neighbourhood Works series of workshops, funded by the Neighbourhood Arrangements Pilot. A development meeting is planned for mid November
1.4 Young People (Chilypep)
Þ Nothing extra to report.
1.5 Area Panel
Þ We are on course to launch the joint meetings in November.
The first meeting will be on the 15th November at 7pm at St Thomas More’s Church, Parson Cross.
1.6 Community Engagement Toolkit
Þ The Toolkit remains to be agreed in its final format. A meeting is scheduled for the 9th November.
Þ Lois Downes has put the current versionToolkit on SOAR’s website.
Þ It has been agreed that SOAR will have control of the Master document. A set of protocols has been drawn up to outline the ways in which amendments can be made to the document.
1.7 SOAR Board
Þ Nothing extra to report.
1.8 Smoking Cessation
Lisa has been raising the profile of the stop smoking support available. She now has a number of weekly sessions including local schools and other community venues. Lisa currently has approximately 50 contacts that she is following up.
OBJECTIVE 2 – To assist local neighbourhood organisations to contribute to delivering successful neighbourhoods and become more sustainable:
2.1 Social accounts (AKA Evaluation)
Þ The draft social accounts were circulated at the AGM in October. The last day for comments was Friday 2nd Nov.
Þ Ian is arranging a meeting with Link to discuss future phases.
2.2 Training and development support
Þ Steve Rundell sat on the recruitment panel at Parson Cross Forum to recruit a part time Development Worker for the Forum (see 1.1)
Þ Lois Downes has been supporting Jill Somerville, LOCAL’s finance & monitoring worker, with Quickbooks and other financial systems.
Þ Guy Weston & Lois Downes have been supporting Sheryl Roberts in setting up monitoring systems and with Quickbooks.
2.3 Community Hubs & Centres
Þ General – (No Change) The joint SCC/SOAR bid to English Partnerships (EP) is being progressed.
Þ Longley – The Centre was successfully opened on 21St September. They are progressing LEGI spend to refurbish the old café and meeting room
Þ Shirecliffe – The SCP Board took over the employment and line management of Sheryl from 1st October. They are progressing LEGI spend to install an acoustic screen between the stage and the hall.
Þ St Thomas Mores –They are currently considering their options to develop phase 2.
Þ Knutton Rd – Knutton Road is part of the LEGI business plan for neighbourhood enterprise centres. Sarah has completed the application form and was involved in the interviewing of an architects panel. SOAR are visiting the five architects practices on the panel and seeking references. Following this a short list of three architects will be chosen to complete a design competition for Knutton Road.
A meeting with Adventure Capital Fund has been set up for the 5th November.
Guy Rusling continues to work on the sale of Margetson.
Þ Library Learning Centre – The Lottery bid was successful. The Delivery Group now meets in the certain knowledge that it will be built - Hooray. Richard Bulloss (SCC) is the Project manager and Paul Walters (SCEDU) is the Business Plan developer. A Lottery meeting was attended on the 30th October to look at the detail required by the funder. A mini Design Engagement Plan is being drawn up by Sarah, Steve and Alex Shillkoff. This will link into the Margetson Market in December
Þ SPELL – Have secured £500k from the Lottery for work on an Extended Schools project.
Þ Young Person’s Building – The Group has written a Positioning Paper to move the project forward. See Appendix 1.
Þ SOAR Offices – Sarah has continued to chase the solicitors to progress the lease transfer. Most of the information requested from NCH has now been sent to our solicitors, and the focus is now on the use clause. Building Regulations approval is required before refurbishment works can start. Sarah has got quotes and timescales for this work.
2.3 Funding
Þ SOAR intends to put a bid into the Lottery BASIS pot (no change) Steve Rundell is leading on this. The programme opens in April. This pot funds infrastructure organisations. It is a non competitive programme meaning that all projects which meet the stated criteria will receive funding
OBJECTIVE 3 – To become a sustainable organisation in our own right and create wealth by:
3.1 SOAR Enterprises –
Þ SOAR Enterprises AGM was held 1st October 2007 with 06/07 accounts being approved.
3.2 SOAR Build.
Þ The AGM approved the financial accounts. Pre tax profits for 2006-2007 were £45,563, all of which has been re-invested into the future growth of the company.
3.3 Sale of services
Þ Nottingham contract – (ongoing) SOAR will be undertaking monitoring for the rest of 2007/08, an extra 2 quarters of work.
Þ High Green – (ongoing) Current work ended earlier this year. Facilitation of an away day is being discussed to help the Forum develop a vision for itself in the future and a clear Action Plan. This is due to take place on 20th November. Steve to be supported by Hannah.
3.4 Full Employment Zone (FEZ)
Þ The team continues to deliver their outputs.
Þ The Key Fund (Global Grants) bid has been rejected. The bid met the criteria but the pot was over subscribed.
3.5 Investment in the area
Þ South Yorkshire Community Foundation –(No Change) ‘Mini Community Chest’
Þ Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) – (ongoing) Sue Lowry (Enterprise Champion) has been joined by Sean Macaskill. Tricia Heckingbottom works with them as Business Adviser. They now have 46 clients, and counting, between them.
3.6 Supporting the development of social enterprises
Þ Green City Enterprises – 2 Supervisers have now been appointed – one to supervise the Active Citizens and the other to deliver the new contracts that are coming through. GCE has received and signed the contract with probation service.
Þ Southey Owlerton Regeneration Care Enterprise (SORCE) – was unsuccessful in tendering to provide services at a residential home. Despite being cited as an example of good procurement practice by SCC (wrongly so in our view) turnover needs to be increased to ensure the businesses’ viability.
Þ Young Persons Consortium – Ian attended a two day workshop to look at forming a consortium to bid for contracts for the delivery of services to young people. The idea would be to win large contracts and then sub-let. If SOAR was to provide this role it would help contribute to core costs and help the sustainable local delivery of young persons services e.g. Streetwise Youthy Central, Chilypep.
3.7 Working jointly with the Council and other agencies
Þ Successful Neighbourhoods Board – the October meeting focused on revising the Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy, the Local Area Agreement, issues facing Darnall, and the new Council Performance Management Framework.
Þ Creative Sheffield – For a summary of the Sheffield Economic masterplan see Appendix 2.
Þ (awaiting bid outcome) Meeting held with Sheffield University regarding a partnership around the University applying for Beacon Status around community engagement. We have got through to the next round.
3.8 Enhanced Public Health Programme
Þ Enhanced Public Health Programme Contract - Due to time limits and problems with recruitment SOAR will directly be contracting with Dawn Young to undertake the Older Persons Activity sessions on a free lance basis, supported by Andy Bennett.
Þ All projects apart from Health Walks are now in full contract and ready to draw down funding in forthcoming month.
Þ EPHP Small Grants – Uptake of Grants Fund continues to be slow with only 3 applications submitted to grants panel (20/11/07) at time of writing.
Þ Publicity material has been produced and re-distributed to various partners via E-bulletin. All is being done to drum up interest!
Þ If interest remains poor the EPHP Small Grants Scheme will be reviewed in the New Year.
Þ Forthcoming Small Grants Fund REVISED panel and deadline dates.
Panel 3 Meeting: 27th November 2007*provisional
Panel 3 Deadline: 9th November 2007
Þ Heart Research UK Healthy Heart Grant – Sarah & Lisa have been unsuccessful in their bid to run a healthy heart project across the SOAR area. Sarah & Lisa will write a revised bid for the same project to Awards for All.
OBJECTIVE 4 – To communicate effectively with all stakeholders by…
4.1 5 Alive Magazine
Þ An ABC bid for £2000 has been agreed.
Þ Delivery of the most recent issue of the magazine began on 5th November. This is the first distribution with Royal Mail Door to Door.
Þ Distribution costs are over £1,000 less with Royal Mail, however each distribution has to be booked separately. There were two hand over dates this month so Hannah and Sarah ended up hiring a transit van and driving to Wakefield and unloading all 77 boxes of the magazine themselves! Delivery direct from the printers to Royal Mail has been agreed for future issues.
Website
Þ Development of the website is ongoing. 2 parts are currently being improved:
1. SOAR Board / Area Panel meeting pages – these are being developed so that the forward agenda and any minutes can be easily accessed. There will be a facility for people to send in questions or responses to any of the issues raised.
2. Events pages – the calendar and events section will be improved so that visitors to the site can look at a calendar of specific events, such as festivals, or choose to look at all events. Events will be grouped in categories and these will be colour coded. There will also be a form that can be filled in to send us details of any other events / public meetings in the area.
OBJECTIVE 5 – To be a good employer and care for the organisations resources by:
5.1 HR issues
Þ IIP update: the assessment should be carried out in November and December.
Resources
Þ Nothing to report
5.3 Training & Development
Þ Lois Downes has attended a one day training course on VAT for charities run by SCEDU.
Þ Member of the Team are attending a course around legal issues in the community (Open College Network Level 2). Lois is attending sessions on Employment Law, Guy is attending sessions on Organisations & Structures and Sarah is attending sessions on Health & Safety and Premises Management.
Þ Sarah attended a three day course ILM level 4, Unit 3 in Understanding the Management Role in October
Þ Sarah also attended Sheffield City Council’s Project Management Course in early November.
Þ Two members of the Team are attending IIP training in Measuring and Managing Performance as part of SOAR’s commitment to work towards IIP status.
5.4 SOAR Board Away Day
Þ A report will be tabled at the meeting.
APPENDIX 1
PARSON CROSS YOUNG PERSON BUILDING (YPB)
DRAFT POSITIONING PAPER
1 BACKGROUND
There are two dilapidated youth club buildings in Parson Cross that are well past their sell by date. The two sites are an integral part of a new housing development of the old Sheffield College site. The idea is to sell off the two sites, ring fence the capital receipt for the development of a new purpose built building on the Colley Park site.
There is also a run down sports building owned by the college in the middle of the proposed housing development that could be demolished and re-provided within the new youth building.
Barratts, who are going to purchase the Sheffield College owned land, are commencing their planning application process in November so there is a need to work through the key issues fairly quickly if Barratts are to be a player of some kind in this development.
2 SITE OWNERSHIP
Colley Youth Club Children and Young People's Directorate
Remington Youth Club Neighbourhoods and Community Care
Colley Park Site Neighbourhoods and Community Care
Sports Building Sheffield College
3 DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS
Option 1: SCC develop new youth building on Colley Park site and existing youth sites are sold on the open market.
Option 1a: As above but existing youth buildings (Colley & Remington) sites are sold to Barratts as a special purchaser.
Option 1b: As above but Barratts are asked to be developer for the new Youth Building (need to check procurement with corporate property would maybe have to advertise but Barratts would be cheapest?)
Option 2: SCC to develop new combined youth building and Sports Hall development on Colley Park site. Existing Sports Hall, Colley & Remington youth clubs to be demolished and sites sold.
Option 2a: As above but with Barratts as developer
4 KEY ISSUES
§ SCC need to recognise that the receipts would need to be ring fenced to the extent necessary to replace the lost facilities.
§ Would SCC gift the Colley Park site?
§ What is the process to answer these questions?
5 OTHER BACKGROUND
The Delivery Group
The role of the delivery group will be to secure and manage the financial and technical side of delivering the building including securing funding and planning permission.
Membership of the Delivery Group
Sheffield Futures | Lynne Hilson |
ChilYPEP | Lesley Pollard |
Parson Cross Forum | Norma Ashmore |
SOAR | Ian Drayton & Sarah Larsen |
North Sheffield Regeneration Team, Housing Strategy | Steve Birch |
SCC Corporate Property | Jon Bagshaw |
SCC Planning | Vicky Penn |
SCC Councilllor | Leigh Bramall |
Ian Drayton
SOAR Partnership Manager
22-10-07
APPENDIX 2
The key facets of the Sheffield Economic Masterplan.
Regeneration within the Sheffield Development Framework
OFFER’s View of the Sheffield Economic Masterplan
As might be expected the document focuses principally on the development of an ‘Enterprise Culture’ or changes to Business Culture’ and a change of the organisational culture of the city council in its regulatory role to ‘become more business and economy aware’ so that Sheffield becomes known as a ‘business friendly city’. Having said this, the enterprising/entrepreneurial ‘culture’ that is proposed could be of great advantage to social/community enterprises seeking to develop new initiatives. For example on Page 63 The Framework states:
‘A key aspect of developing the economy is “stimulating a stronger entrepreneurial culture and removing barriers that many local people face in accessing enterprise opportunities.’
The principal discussion of practical ways of addressing these issues is in terms of take up of training and employment opportunities. For example, on Page 66 in a discussion of the ‘polarisation of the best and poorest performing neighbourhoods’, under the overall heading ‘Theme 2.3: Enhancing Neighbourhood Cohesion’ the framework states:
‘The effect of these neighbourhoods is to reduce social and economic mobility and to undermine efforts to increase economic participation. There is a broad consensus that neighbourhood environments have a major impact on economic inclusion, with poor housing, high levels of crime and anti social behaviour and limited local economies reducing the willingness or ability of residents to take up training and employment opportunities. (my bold italics) Addressing other aspects of deprivation and disadvantage are critical in addressing economic exclusion and increasing the participation rates of local residents.’
The main practical initiative identified as a means to address the issues is the Skilled in Sheffield Partnership, of which it states:
The Skilled in Sheffield Partnership has been established to develop and implement, on behalf of the Work and Skills Board, an Employment and Skills Strategy for the city that ensures that present and predicted skills needs are more effectively identified and met and that new employment opportunities are made available to those who need them most.
The Skilled in Sheffield Partnership will also:
- Promote collaborative planning between stakeholders and advise on the commissioning of employment and skills-related on the part of those funding agencies represented in the Regional Skills Partnership
- Stimulate innovative practice that better addresses the skills needs of the employer, the individual and the sub-regional economy and which better connects employers with skilled labour and people with sustainable work.
- Promote innovative practice in the planning, coordination and delivery of skills-related interventions as models of national and European significance.
- Recognise skills as an important determinant of social inclusion and promote equality of opportunity in access to training, support and employment and in achievement in learning, work and career progression.
- Monitor, evaluate and review performance and progress against the city’s Employment and Skills Strategy and to advise the Work and Skills Board on future action.
These arrangements, coupled with the availability of Deprived Areas Fund and European Social Fund support, will allow significant progress to be made with regard to both addressing basic skills needs and the up-skilling of the workforce more generally.
However, when this is compared to the discussion of the framework at an OFFER event earlier in the year where the needs of workless and ‘skillless’ adults were identified as a specific impediment to economic development this seems rather watered down. One possible reason for this is an effort top foster consensus across agencies such as the LSC and CYPD in support of the framework as a whole. However in doing so it seems to leave the way open for an age discriminatory approach that focuses on the 16-19 age group, as this is where the LSC and CYPD’s existing targets are arranged. This will then leave the need for community based adult education as a first step for those suffering exclusion as an afterthought at best.
The discussion of Regeneration in itself focuses principally on a geographical interpretation of the subject and describes on page 95 the need to focus on the North, East and South of the city and the development of ‘Neighbourhood Centres’ as ‘outposts of the city centre’ and the development of transport links. One revealing idea in the discussion is on the North of the city as having ‘significant capacity to provide new homes for professional workers moving to the city with no fixed ideas about areas’. This begs two questions, first whether this exercise in social engineering is likely to succeed as the ‘professional workers’ in question will be unlikely to move into any area without visiting it first and one look at deprived areas such as Parson Cross or Longley will make a negative impression for a long time to come, whether they have ‘fixed ideas’ or not. Secondly where will the people who live in the areas in question be displaced to?
Overall there seems to be no examination of how excluded groups and individuals are going to engage with development as delivered through the framework, as a whole there seems to be an assumption that existing institutions in business, education and local government are going to be sufficient, provided they make some changes to their approach. However since it is these institutions from which those suffering exclusion are excluded how can this be delivered without some kind of community level interventions?
Culture and Sport within the Sheffield Economic Masterplan
Further to the above some interesting material appears on looking at the masterplan in terms of its treatment of Culture and Sport.
Examined in terms of its attention to the terms ‘Sport and ‘Culture/Cultural’ there are few specific mentions of sport and fragmented discussions and varied uses of the term ‘Culture’
Most mentions of the term Culture’ are in the context of the development of an ‘Enterprise Culture’ or changes to Business Culture’ and a change of the organisational culture of the city council in its regulatory role to ‘become more business and economy aware’ so that Sheffield becomes known as a ‘business friendly city’. Having said this, as indicated above, the enterprising/entrepreneurial ‘culture’ that is proposed could be of great advantage to Musicians, artists and performers seeking to be self employed or develop initiatives in ‘cultural and creative industries’ For example on Page 63 The Framework states:
A key aspect of developing the economy is “stimulating a stronger entrepreneurial culture and removing barriers that many local people face in accessing enterprise opportunities.”
However some key aims of the masterplan implicitly or specifically require Cultural and artistic activity if they are to be successful and assume its presence without specifying how it is to be delivered, supported or fostered. These are
On page 48
In a discussion of the ‘Knowledge Economy’ the Universities are described as:
‘contributing to Encouraging the genesis and development of new high technology, creative and cultural industries;’
On page 53
Under the heading of Maximising Sheffield Image and Identity there is a discussion of:
‘Developing a set of attractive city products, a more talented workforce and an improved quality of life for its residents.’
In which is described:
‘City products
• Infrastructure: including good quality office space, transport connections, areas of high environmental quality, low pollution, ICT infrastructure are all pivotal factors in attracting investors, businesses and new talent.
• Attractions: Theatres and Galleries, wider cultural offer including bars, restaurants and hotels, and retail offer are important in attracting and retaining residents and are vital to the visitor economy, conference and convention markets. Here the city centre plays a major role in helping to provide and strengthen this part of the overall city product.
• People and good quality skills are one of the top three elements which businesses look for when considering different investment locations. Given the city’s knowledge economy ambitions this is a critical area
• The City’s quality of life and brand cover all of the previous products and represent the city product as a whole. This encapsulates what makes Sheffield a distinctive investment and visitor destination.’
On Page 56
Under the heading of a ‘New Brand Platform’ it says:
‘Due to strong municipal leadership, the voice of Sheffield has become dominated by the public sector, and as a consequence Sheffield has a poor image for business and a very disjointed one for arts, culture and sport.
An audit of the UK national press in the last 6 months, shows the only mentions of Sheffield as football, music, theatres and universities, latterly the floods have dominated and showcased the more deprived elements of the city region. As Sheffield moves towards economic transformation, and achieves status as a leading European city, it must have a clear brand proposition to communicate with its key audiences.’
And then
‘The Brand would most likely take the form of a visual style template with an overall brand message. This could then be populated with relevant content to suit
the markets targeted by different stakeholders, from innovations in the AMM and CDI sectors through to Environmental technologies of LIFE IC and the Biofusion incubator. It could also deliver theatre and museum content (Vivienne Westwood at the Millennium Galleries) through to Cultural events such as Galvanise. The brand identity and proposition would be voted on by the city image brand trust (key stakeholders who have fed into Master-plan).
In this way the brand platform acts as an organising framework for all the City’s stakeholders to:
- Build on existing strengths
- Communicate the messages and characteristics that make Sheffield distinct from competing cities
- Work strategically to strengthen the brand through a series of co-ordinated hard (physical infrastructure e.g. New Retail Quarter) and soft measures (events strategy & programme).
The overall effect would be a Sheffield brand family pushing exciting and innovative stories about an emerging economic power, within a strategic framework.’
On page 67
Under the heading of Stronger Neighbourhood Economies it says:
‘The reinvigoration of centres such as Southey, Owlerton and Firth Park presents further opportunities to increase new business start ups and encourage self employment, tapping in to new activities in sectors such as cultural and creative industries.’
On page 86
Under the Heading of City Level Economic Drivers and the sub heading of ‘City Centre it says:
‘It will provide attractive places to work as well as a complementary offer of strong retail provision, a vibrant cultural and leisure scene alongside attractive
places to live within and around the City Centre.’
Conclusions
Further to all of this one thing that doesn’t seem to be specifically mentioned is how to prevent success in one sector, such as urban redevelopment, causing failure in another- such as the music industry through loss of rehearsal space, thereby threatening the ‘vibrant cultural and leisure scene’ that they seem to feel is so important.
Working Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF)
What's WNF?
The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) confirmed that we are in the last year of Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (as we have always understood). A new funding stream, with different priorities, has been announced in its place, which is the Working Neighbourhoods Fund.
The WNF is intended to tackle deprivation/inequality by improving education and skills and helping people move off benefits and into work. Employment is seen by the Government as the main way to end poverty and improve the quality of life in deprived areas.
How much?
Details of how much money will go into the Working Neighbourhoods Fund nationally will be announced by the Treasury later this year. Sheffield is unlikely to know its allocation until January 2008 when all Government funding for the city is announced.
What next?
At present our best knowledge is that any replacement allocations will be on a smaller scale and will have a strong economic focus.
This is backed up by a letter received from Evelyn Milne (SCC Head of Regeneration & Partnerships), see below for an extract:
“although we are not in receipt of clear guidance, unless activities directly relate to tackling worklessness it seems unlikely they will continue to be eligible”.
I am hoping that SOAR will receive some further guidance in January 2008, this of course will be forwarded on to you as soon as I receive it.
In the meantime if you have any concerns about NRF/WNF please contact me on 0114 2496194 or email guy@soaregen.org.uk .
Want more detail about other announcements in the Comprehensive Spending Review?
This article from New Start Magazine gives you a clear outline of what the CSR comprises.
However, if you want some bed time reading please check out the HM Treasury’s full version!
Guy Weston
Contract & Monitoring Co ordinator
SOAR
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