How was the project formulated?
The project started from the premise that a scarcity of resources over the long run creates difficulty in building genuinely sustainable communities that require planning and investment over at least a 25 year time horizon.
In an effort to avoid long-term erosion of the quality of economic, social and physical infrastructure, the project focused on the goal of designing in long-term sustainability from the outset.
The team conducted their work through:
• the compilation of a long list of all the development scheme elements
• the generation of a short list of core elements
• the analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of best practice examples
• the assessment of various combinations of activities reading to the development of a sustainability/entrepreneurship model
• the examination of potential constraints specifically focused on technical, financial, operational, social, political, legal and cultural constraints
Current and emerging public policy strongly encourages community enterprise approaches to the management of public assets and delivery of public services. Community-based solutions and public participation are advocated assets by a string of government policy instruments: in commissioning health, leisure, culture, education and environmental services, owning and managing community. These policies are backed by important finance streams.
Key Lessons for Waverley
There is no doubt that although good practice examples are few and far between in the UK, policy makers are beginning to see the potential for social enterprises in new development schemes. Part of this stems from the Government’s interest in finding new solutions to long term regeneration problems and in social enterprise business models.
Case studies show the economic and social value derived from widening the scope of interest of community activities to build a portfolio. Each has seen the opportunity to build a more sustainable business model by reducing their dependency on narrow income streams and to increase their profile in the community by doing more.
All the case studies here demonstrate the importance of adopting an entrepreneurial approach. All have also framed that approach within a clear social context – community benefits – but all have paid great attention to building sound financial plans but have retained sufficient flexibility and autonomy to respond to opportunities to develop their businesses as they arise.
Topics associated with this project
Brownfield, Community-led, Governance, Planning, Private sector, Yorkshire and Humber