Arches Local Year 4 Plan
Arches Local Year 4 Plan
Arches Local Year 4 Plan
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Contents Page
Introduction by Chair of the Partnership 3
Social Investment 14 - 15
Whole Community 23 - 24
Changing Behaviour 24
The Budget 26 - 27
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Our “Neighbourhood Planning Group” activities are continuing to produce discussions and we will
seek to move through the steps to further our Neighbourhood plan. The coming years will see a
large increase in the discussions and workload and as a consequence we will be looking for some
one with suitable skills, preferably local to lead the group and other ancillary tasks.
My thanks goes to every one that has taken part in events, discussions and supporting at events and
to the organisations with whom we work. Thanks also to Priti Varney for her work and welcome to
our new apprentice Liberty Taylor, to Stephen Perez for being the conduit to making our ideas and
wishes into the workable plan you see over the coming pages.
We will see some unique challenges ahead for us all, where ever we are, but we can come through
this to make it a better place for us all.
Thank you,
Carl Kroon.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
The above map includes the Arches Local Big Local area marked in green and The Arches
Neighbourhood planning potential area in Red.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Analysis by the Office for National Statistics using Census data for the Arches local area groups the
neighbourhoods into two main clusters of households. The ‘Constrained Neighbourhoods’ group,
that are households more likely to live in terraced properties, who were slightly more likely to work
in manufacturing industries, and households more likely to own two or more cars; and the ‘private
renting new arrivals group’ who are residents who were more likely to have been born in other
countries or come from outside Medway and households more likely to be living in private rented
accommodation, with some living in terraced housing but a growing amount in living space in what
were previously offices converted under permitted developments rights.
The Arches Big Local area in Medway has been classified as one of the most deprived areas in
England. In the 2015 Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), the three areas of Medway 15E, Medway
20B and Medway 20D that have been used to define the area were ranked as the 228, 1203 and
1050 most deprived neighbourhoods out of 32,844 in England. All three neighbourhoods were
ranked relatively poorly on income, employment and crime, with Medway 015E also ranking poorly
on health deprivation, and Medway 20D on children’s outcomes (as the 17th most deprived
neighbourhood in the country).
The Arches Big Local is a culturally diverse area with 27% of people residing there being born outside
of the UK compared with the South East average of 12% with 12% of households who have no
members having English as a main language compared to a South East average of 3%.
Mobility is poor with up to 49% of households having no car compared to 19% across the South East.
With only 53% of the population with a UK passport compared to South East average of 79%.
There are relatively high levels of poverty in the area. In 2014, around 40% of children aged under 16
were in low income families in the Arches area, compared to the Medway average of 21% and the
England average of around 20%. The Arches figure for 2012 was 36% suggesting some increase in
levels of poverty on this measure over those 3 years.
However, it will be interesting to see the movement in some of these statistics in the coming years in
the parts of the Arches Local area that have undergone positive or negative regeneration. On a
bright note some Local schools have improved noticably with Luton Junior School receiving an
Outstanding OFSTED and major improvements at Victory Academy from being a school struggling to
fill it quota to now having a waiting list. In general though our infrastructure is struggling under the
number of people moving to the area unfortunately many that would be catergorised as vunerable
and with complex health needs or issues.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Population.
Population projections shows growth in younger age groups and shrinking of older age groups
compared to the rest of Medway with steady overall grow.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
You can visually see from walking round the area that it is a culturaly diverse area with 19.3% of the
population being classified as non-white and 14.6% white non-British. Though there are many clear
benefits to the area being so culuturally diverse it can and has presented challenges around
communication that can been seen from the below tables on variety of languages spoken.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Familes and people living in poverty is a common challenge with 35% people aged 16-74 in full-time
employment in Arches Local (Central Chatham, Luton Arches) compared with 40% across South East.
36 in every 1000 people in the Arches Local are unemployed.
The largest employment sector is Retail accounting for 18% of people in employment with a large
proportion of these with zero hour contracts giving little or no control over working hours.
The unemployment to available job ratio in the Arches Local area is 78 claimants per job compared
to South East average of 2.47. Below table shows the number of vacancies notified to Job Centre.
- Resident-Led
- Hyperlocal
- Long-Term
- Unconditional
Big Local is a new approach to communities achieving lasting positive change in their areas and
achieving the four Big Local outcomes. It is resident led and residents choose a locally trusted
organisation to hold their funds, with residents in the lead. Residents choose their own timeline for
submitting their vision and plan, and spending their funds.
- communities will be better able to identify local needs and take action in response to them;
- people will have increased skills and confidence, so that they continue to identify
andrespond to needs in the future;
- the community will make a difference to the needs it prioritises;
- people will feel that their area is an even better place to live.
Journey so far..
Big Local was launched in three waves of 50 areas. Arches local was launched in the second wave
which was announced in February 2012. From the below we can see the spending across all Big Local
so far and projected spend up to project end 2026.
£55m
£40m
£140m
2011 -12 2018 -19 2015 -26
As you can see from the above bar chart we are at approximately the mid point of the Big Local
Journey which will end in 2026.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
The above bar chart gives a view on the funding that Big Local areas have committed or spent so far.
The Arches Local would at the end of year 3 be approxiametly in the £201,000 to £300,000 bracket.
Big Local is run by Local Trust, working with a £200m endowment from the Big Lottery Fund all
funding has to be spent by Big Local area by 2026 or it will be returned to the Big Lottery.
People Involved.
Approximetly
1928 residents
have been
involved in local
decision making
through their
respective Big
Local areas.
Though we have
been successful in
involving young
people we still
need to find more
ways to encourage
more young people to
get involved.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Through delivering the different elements of the year 3 plan the partnership has seen a marked
increase in the amount of activities and opportunities that we are delivering locally, also that true
and long lasting change can not always be delivered to a timescale, this led to us extending the year
3 plan from the end of December 2018 to possibly the end of April 2019.
We have seen in particular the development and delivery of activities from our community space
“The Arches” and the positive interaction we have had with the community taking part in those
activities. The conversations we have had has helped us hear and discuss the local issues more
frequently and the impact of our actions i.e. the positive outcomes from the maths club and creative
english sessions in not only bringing the community together but increasing peoples confidence,
skills and well being.
From the successful engagement events held throughout the year, our community researchers
(made up from people living in the area) have once again spoken to lots of people living and working
in the area. Similary the themes they have been recording at our larger annual events are like those
spoken about in previous years. These events originally were designed to raise awareness of the Big
Local project though they are attended better year on year, numbers of the local community helping
out beyond the partnership have dwindled and they are becoming more costly. We had recorded
more people wanting more Big Local Events which we have provided i.e Fit and Fed sessions 3 days a
week for 7 weeks of the summer holidays. We plan to be more targeted with the events that we run
to make better use of our Community Space and provide more regular activites rather than focusing
on three one off events. We acknowledge that some people will be disappointed with the absence of
these events but will provide funding and support for group of individuals living in the area that wish
to put on or provide something similar.
We have seen people more frequently discussing the barriers to future aspirations for themselves
and the area. This has come about from people interacting via our community space and the large
amount of time and effort we have put towards developing a neighbourhood plan for our area. This
has lead to people requesting more job related training and educational opportunities which we
plan to provide from community space and within the area.
Though our year 4 reflects many of the topics and issues that
previous plans have, we hope this would not been seen as a lack
of success from previous years as this would not be accurate. It is
more a realisation that change can take time complicated by an
ever changing environment around what is happening and who is
living in our area. We will still continue to look at different ways of
getting more people involved in solving and delivering the planned
outcomes contained within each priority. We plan once again to
be flexible in our delivery, working on the belief of “Change the
Plan never the Goal”
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Social Investment
(Narrowing the Gap)
Poor educational outcomes have a long-term impact on people, reducing their employability,
earning potential and choices in life. The long-term income consequences are detailed in
Figure 2.
www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lmac/earnings-by-qualification-in-the-uk/2011/earnings-by-qualification-
in-the-uk.html
We plan to help narrow the gap not for just any employment but also widen the opportunites for
people living locally to access better employment from our community space and other appropriate
locations. 29% of people have no qualifications in Arches Local area compared with 19% across
South East
Continuing to offer demand-led training, including basic business skills, specific fundamental skills,
improving the variety of offer;
- to encourage local businesses to be more interconnected – supporting each other and the
community;
- Continue to bring in creative and arts-based work;
- Run training on general skills required for accessing current job opportunities.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Through the work carried out my METCIC and moving their Maths group to ‘The Arches’ we have
seen local people be more engaged to improve their Maths. We would like to further develop this
relationship around;
The community has continued to invest in and use the local park.
We have been successful in also in working with other organisations
to help maintain and work in the park most notably OpenRoad
https://www.openroad.org.uk/ who regulary send teams to work
alongside members of our community to do work clearing back areas
at the park.
We still carry out regular maintenance at the park but our continued
efforts of engaging the community in this work has been set back by
shuffling and outsourcing of responsibilities for the parks which has
led to it being diffucult to seek and gain permission to carry out work
or hold events. This has led to MY Trust (formerly Medway Youth
Trust) cancelling their charity fete at Town Hall Gardens because they
could not get permission in time. We are therefore planning this year
to step back a bit from the public parks and look to develop other
spaces. That we can easier gain permissions and open up to the
community. One of these spaces is Luton Junior School Playing Field
where there are plans to build a forest school on an unused
overgrown part and our community allotment. We wish to help
better develop this spaces open them up so that the wider
community can make better use of them.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Victoria Embankment: Photo of planting scheme, taken 1870-1900 (sourced from English Heritage).
We know that Medway Council are cutting down a lot more tree than they are planting. This has
been acknowledge by themselves, this project would help deal with that deficit.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
- Considerations of where to plant the trees they bought a utility scanner (£1000) to look for
power cables, etc;
- Issues with fibre optics laid not picked up on scanners and not mapped where they are;
- Can’t be planted near sight lines road junctions, traffic lights, CCTV, etc... Street furniture 6m
from lampposts where they recommend at least 2m footway minimum be interesting to see
how that measures up with what we currently have along parts of Luton Road.
Space for planting: Excerpt from Department for Transport, Manual for Streets (2007)
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
We have been looking at design guidelines around planting trees we feel there are potential barriers
that will be put up by the Council i.e root diversion, heights of the tree, not using fruit-bearing trees.
We need to focus that trees can provide a natural scale to buildings and streets; reflect the changing
seasons and give a psychological link to the countryside; bring visual beauty to area; block ugly views
and soften glare from reflective building surfaces; provide shade; act as windbreaks; can filter out a
great deal of dust, pollutants and even viruses; and
provide valuable screening for residents
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
We have been busy developing our Neighbourhood Planning Forum which is called The Arches
Neighbourhood Planning Forum. We see development of a Neighbourhood plan as a way to;
- Focus more local attention on our area, more money spent in our area (we are achieving
elements of this already through our engagement)
We wish to make additional funding available where the partnership feel appropriate to bolster
the financial support we have and will secured from Locality. The initial grant we have received
which is for £2,460 to help develop a neighbourhood forum must be spent by Feb 2019. We held
a number of events to raise awareness and encourage people to get involved which were well
attended with plans to hold similar events in the first half of 2019 which some of this additional
funding could be used to facilitate. There may also be a need for this additional funding to
backfill some Arches Local staffing time to help aid in the development of the Neighbourhood
plan. Once we have drawn down fully the initial basic grant of £9,000, complex groups which we
would be considered to be are eligible to apply for a further grant of up to £6,000 giving a total
grant ceiling of £15,000.
There has been in parts of the Arches Local area the continued
conversion of what were historically commercial building including
office blocks, shop fronts and community assets including pubs to
multiple occupancy single dwelling often of very poor quality and
living standards. These developments appear to be most carried out
under permitted development and often are unchecked and clearly
not supporting the needs of Arches Local community, they often compound the problems on the
already oversubscribed services locally and lack of space. The increase in these single
room/bedrooms dwelling have coincided with some GP surgeries within the area no longer
registering new patients and the increases in antisocial behaviour around fly tipping, parking and
organised gang behaviour. Additionally many of these new homes are being used to house
people from outside the area most notably from London boroughs, many of the people and
families could be considered vunerable i.e Poor or no English, uncertain immigration status, and
in clear poverty.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
This has cause further instability locally compounded the lack of community spirit and impact
negatively on peoples mental and physical wellbeing. The strain is also being felt by our
infrastructure such as schools, GP surgery who are reporting increasing numbers wanting to join
and children and families with complex needs. With a recent case reported of modern slavery
where a mother of a young child was being passed around the community as an unpaid house
servant.
The partnership has continued to find it difficult to find an organisation or individual to carry out
the work without a vested interest locally in the Private Rented Sector. We have met with
Medway Council strategic housing team where we have discussed local issues and the possibility
of using of selective licensing. They have communicated that they were not ready to fully look or
commit to that process but that it was something they were considering. They also indicated
they could provide staff to help run housing advice session at The Arches and possibly another
street week project similar one carried out in Margate. We would like to use some funding to
run a pilot to provide a drop in for tenants and landlords to receive independant advice on
housing issues and encourage Medway Council to be more involved.
- Increase the range of affordable activities available for people living in the area;
- Encourage the growth of local initiatives that are designed and run by residents;
- Encourage the building of new infrastructure to provide opportunities
- Bring young people together;
- Bring people of different ages, cultures, faiths, communities etc. Together;
- Promote use of our outdoor spaces and local facilities.
This will help create a more active society, in which it is easier and more natural for people living
locally to be active than inactive. The Physical and Mental wellbeing of those involved and living
locally will be improved. Physical activity can reduce stress and anxiety. Mastering new skills can
increase confidence and self-esteem.
Getting more active together will help build stronger communities by bringing people together,
often from different backgrounds, to make them feel better about where they live, improve
community links and cohesion and build social capital. We know that people who volunteer in sport,
for example, are more likely to feel they belong in their area and people who take part in sport are
likely to enjoy stronger social links with other people. We know that there are other barriers to
people being active so will ensure all activities are at the right place, price, time and with the right
style.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
We know that from our extensive consulatations and local conversations that one of the
main barriers to being more active is a lack of places and opportunites locally. When we
couple this with the statistic that 49% of households have no car compared with 19%
across the South East and that nationally we have some of the most expensive bus travel.
This help demonstrates that many people living our area have limited mobility or
financial ability to travel to access opportunities outside of the Arches Local area.
Taking this into account with other factors in October 2018 the partnership
aggreed pursuant to terms being mutually aggreed to provide £50,000.00
to St Mary Boxing Club who have been present in the area for over 90
years originally established in 1926 behind Chatham Town Hall at the other
end of the Arches Local area, to help them build there new purpose
designed boxing gym in a top corner of Luton Millennium Green. It was felt
this would help:
- Increase the activities the boxing club could make available for
people living in the area;
- Help secure the legacy and continued development of Luton
Millennium Green;
- Act as and additional community space to help bring people
together;
- Ensure a development that helped bring the community together
not undermine it;
- Help support community activities in the park i.e access water;
- Further promote use of our outdoor spaces and local facilities.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Whole Community
(Develop opportunities for connections)
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
- Given the opportunity to develop a range of new skills, or build on those they already have,
in areas such as teamwork, presentation skills and communication skills;
- Development of their capacity to frame and better understand the environment in which
they live;
- Build stronger relationships between youth, the community and local services.
Changing Behaviour
(Diversionary Activities)
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Working with local infrastructure and helping shape it will support the continued development of
the partnership structure also capacity building for people to engage is vital to the continued success
of the Arches Local Plan.
The Arches Local Partnership also recognises that there is still a need to continue and improve
communication to engage with as many partners and residents as possible and to this end, it will be
delivered by the Arches Local Coordinator who will also help deliver the key elements of the plan
and develop the ongoing strategy of plan delivery.
We have also recognised the large increase in our activities and the number of areas that we are
active in and that our capacity at times in certain areas does not match our output. To increase this
capacity we plan to hire a plan delivery/campaign officer (Appendix A) who will be responsible for
helping drive the Neighbourhood Plan, Urban Trees planting, Improvements to private housing
sector and parking/traffic among other appropriate elements of the Year 4 plan.
Delivery of the plan will be made easier with the support and further development of the Arches
Local apprentice whose main role will be based out of ‘The Arches’ community space to
increase/develop participation and raising awareness of Arches Local. Leading to;
September 2018
http://localtrust.org.uk/library/research-and-evaluation/rebalancing-the-power
"It would be nice if we could all agree to this proposition of rebalancing power but
let’s not forget that power is ourselves all coming together and not an external
power over us. The ultimate decision-makers of our communities are not a council
officer, councillors and local authorities, but the people who live there. #Vote
#BigLocal #GetInvolved #MakeADifference"
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
The Budget
1 Social Investment
Social Investment Project Narrowing the gap offer demand-led training, provide educational opportunities 10,000
The Arches Hub Rent and £3k potential relocation costs 16,800
Business Rates 3,000
Other Core Costs, Cleaning, Insurance, Equipment, Amenity Bills 5,000
£34,800
2 Open Spaces & The Enviroment
Park development direct and match funding Improving access to open spaces, encouraging their use 10,000
Enviroment visual appearance improvement funding Develop Urban Tree Planting Strategy, Tree Planting 30,000
Development of Recycling Centre Located at Luton Road Shoppers car park 4,000
£44,000
3 Private Rented Sector Housing
Neigborhood Planning support Develop a Neighbourhood plan additional costs, staffing, website, promotion 10,000
Private Housing Drop Ins for tenant and landlord advice to help with housing issues 3,000
£13,000
4 Getting More Active
Getting Active activities Fit and Fed, Getting Active Activities, Develop Luton Junior School Playing Field 12,000
Building Infrastructure St Marys Boxing Club New Gym (partnership meeting October 2018) 50,000
£62,000
5 Whole Community
Community Cohesion Activities Activities and Events promoting Community Cohesion 8,000
Senior & Elderly people Grants Activities Activities and Events supporting Senior and Elderly People 3,000
Development of a Arches Local Young Persons’ Forum / Voice Build stronger relationships between youth & the community 3,000
£14,000
6 Changing Behaviour
Diversionary behaviour Activities Activities and Events supporting changing behaviour 8,000
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
£8,000
7 Partnership Development & Delivery
Arches Local Co-ordinator contract Salary (including agreed increase of £2,500) 33,000
Plus 20% on Costs 6,500
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Appendix A:
Big Local Delivery/Campaign Officer Post:
Accountable to: Arches Local Big Local Partnership Group, with line management from the Arches
Local Coordinator.
Hours: 37 hours per week
Salary: £25,000. 12 months fixed term.
Annual leave: 25 days per annum, plus Bank Holidays pro rata
• Raise awareness of the Arches Local vision and activities, supporting publicity and marketing
activities;
• To help bring in match, in kind funding or statutory funding i.e Section 106 to support the
Arches Local plan deliverables;
• Encourage local residents to get involved with ‘The Arches Neighbourhood Forum’;
• Take responsibility for responding to general enquiries about Neighbourhood Planning and
related projects;
• Research and draft responses to planning applications and consultations where appropriate
with support and guidance;
• Undertake data analysis (using Local Insights, 360 Giving and other sources)
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
Person Specification
Educated to degree level with relevant experience gained in either a paid or volunteer capacity, the
appointee will have:
• the ability to work unsupervised within a small busy organisation and to prioritise competing
demands;
• good analytical skills and an ability to get to the nub of things quickly;
• good IT skills including use of Word, databases, website and communications software;
• awareness of, and a curiosity about, social and economic policy and practice;
• plenty of initiative;
• good judgement;
• a capacity to build strong relationships within the team and with external stakeholders;
How to apply
Please submit a CV and a covering letter demonstrating your suitability for the role to
stephen.perez@redzebra.org.uk putting Arches Local additional worker in the subject line.
Appropriately qualified candidates will be invited for interview on a rolling basis i.e. as applications
come in.
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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan
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