Barton residents have been looking at what they love about their area and what they want to change as steps towards setting up their own Community Partnership, planning to launch in December
Working with the City Council’s localities officer, community representatives have been galvanising the local community to look again at the place where they live and decide what they want to treasure or transform about the area.
276 residents responded to a survey about the area, and 17 people turned out on a rainy Saturday to undertake a ‘community mapping’ exercise – small teams walked around the area photographing and fact finding about the things they liked or wanted to change, building up a map of what Barton is like as an area to live, work or visit.
How to get involved
The next event will take place on 12 November when the team hold a ‘world café’ event. Rather than being an actual café, this is a way of running collaborative projects and helping communities have productive discussions about solving their particular challenges.
The event will look at some of the key findings from the survey and the community mapping event.
Some of the things people like about the area include good public transport connections, beautiful green spaces and access to the countryside, and that people work together to improve the local area.
Issues that residents would like to address include cleaner streets and public spaces, a need for activities for teenagers and tackling anti-social behaviour and crime issues.
“It’s great to see the community coming together to make the most of the area where they live. The survey and community mapping showed that people in Barton really like where they live, as well as wanting to tackle local issues. We’re looking for new ways to work with local people and empower them to shape their local services. Projects like this how much energy and expertise there is in communities themselves, and I look forward to working with them to make Barton an even better place to live.”
Councillor Marie Tidball
“I know as a resident that there are lots of good things about Barton, but it’s lovely to hear it from so many other people too. I think there’s a real willingness to get involved in improving Barton, we’ve seen it with the community mural at the neighbourhood centre, and I hope the community partnership will be a way of keeping that kind of energy going and giving us a focus for the long term. We need support from the council, but it’s good to have a say ourselves as well.”
Barton Community Partnership member Katy Cockram
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