Communities are often bystanders of the change happening in their local area. As "stakeholders", their views are sought to merely rubber-stamp established proposals at the end of the process. Alack of proper engagement leads to people feeling undervalued and left out of the process.
When people do get involved it is usually to exercise the only real power or sense of control that they have – to object. The label "nimby" epitomises the conflicting nature of local development and how people resort to radicalism to get their voices heard. Future development gets eyed with suspicion and communities are seen as obstacles to change.
Yet communities are increasingly expected to run services, take on assets and plan development in their areas, so how are local people expected to do this when for so long they have just been disempowered recipients of development and services?
Localism has provided the opportunity for communities to play a stronger role in shaping local places. Developers now need a mandate from communities to develop – they need to obtain "community permission". This means recognising that the community is now a client and needs to be satisfied that development meets their needs.
However, being a client demands skills and capabilities that communities often do not possess. We need to gear up communities to behave like savvy clients. We need to build community confidence to participate and demand the change they want. We need to change behaviour from being adversarial to more collaborative. This is where social entrepreneurs come in.
Social enterprises can help businesses to work better with local communities. Social entrepreneurs already see the community as a client – it's a mindset that underpins their business and motivates them to develop innovative solutions to social needs.
However the private sector needs a change in attitude and approach to engagement in order to recognise the community as client.
The government want businesses to collaborate with communities and the third sector to deliver local services. Social entrepreneurs have valuable knowledge and skills that the private sector needs in order to do this, for example communicating with communities, understanding what they need and developing ways to realise joint aspirations.
Our social enterprise "Mend" is pro-development and has succeeded in helping communities get to grips with being a client. Our motivation is to elevate the role of communities in decision-making about their local places. We do this by helping communities and business work together to unlock the skills, resources and potential that already exists with the aim of helping communities to help themselves.
The results are projects that are locally relevant, have greater local ownership and are more sustainable.
Mend helps transform places that are failing to meet local needs (through poor regeneration practice, multiple disadvantage, lack of engagement) and enlists local organisations to "mend" them.
This includes advocacy and managing relationships between different stakeholders, navigating through the development process, supporting the development and funding of community-led projects and helping businesses use their corporate social responsibility budgets to support local projects.
We work with Oxford House, a community arts organisation in Bethnal Green, east London, which wants to make best use of its existing assets and reconnect with the community. We developed a programme of activities to attract users and activities to the spaces including a café, theatre and dance studio.
This included providing vital support to local services and activities that are at threat of closure or cut-backs and offering opportunities for local businesses and social enterprises to operate Oxford House's facilities. Oxford House is now successfully extending its influence and presence beyond the front door and into the street and wider community.
Mend also runs the Wild Hackney campaign on behalf of the local community, which aims to co-create a street art policy with the council and local businesses. A series of street art pieces being painted over by the council prompted calls from the community for a change in policy.
In response we developed Wild Hackney to recognise the bundle of informal pieces and spaces in our neighbourhoods, such as old signs, original shop fronts, forgotten patches of grass or mosaics, that are often go unrecognised by formal listing but contribute strongly to local identity and place attachment. We held a public meeting and the council is now considering its policy.
Community permission has the potential to improve outcomes for communities and businesses by diffusing situations of conflict in the development process. Communities can be much more than just a recipient or caretaker at the end of the process while businesses can avoid nimby reactions and deliver better projects through responsive dialogue and real engagement.
But in order for gains to be realised on a significant scale we need wholesale behavioural change in the planning, development and regeneration sectors. Changes to service commissioning and planning are happening now. Communities need help to behave like savvy clients and have the confidence to be permission-givers.
Similarly, the private sector needs to respond with new approaches.
There is a massive opportunity for social entrepreneurs to help this change happen, and to provide the glue for holding communities and businesses together. Social entrepreneurs can embody the best of both of those worlds and help mitigate against the worst.
Liane Hartley is director of Mend, a social enterprise which helps transform places that are failing to meet local needs by enlisting local people, businesses and existing organisations to mend them.
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