Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

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 Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

Contents Page
Introduction by Chair of the Partnership 3

Arches Big Local Area Boundaries 4

Community Profile Summary 5-8

What is Big Local ? 9 - 10

Thoughts from the Community 11 - 12

Establising the new Plan 13

Social Investment 14 - 15

Open Spaces & The Environment 15 - 19

Private Rented Sector Housing 20 - 21

Getting More Active 21 - 22

Whole Community 23 - 24

Changing Behaviour 24

Partnership Development & Delivery 25

The Budget 26 - 27

Appendix A Delivery/Campaign Officer Post 28 - 29

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 Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

Introduction by Carl Kroon, Chair of the Arches Local Partnership.

Welcome to the “Arches Local Year 4 Plan”. It

has been my pleasure to take on the role of
Chair as we finalise the Year 3 Plan and the
activities contained therein and prepare and
present the Year 4 Plan. It is also the
anniversary of the loss of Lindsay Robinson
who along with Stephen Perez laid the
foundations to our current plan.

The previous year saw us launch the

successful “Fit and Fed” programme over
summer holidays, half terms and we look to
develop this further. The year ahead will see
some changes from our previous delivery
and see us more focused on demand led
activities along side our ongoing programme.

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.

“all we have to do is keep talking.”

Thank you,

Carl Kroon.

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 Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

Arches Big Local Area Boundaries.

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

Community Profile Summary.

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

Ethnicity and Main Language.

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

Unemployment – job seekers allowance

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.

Source: Office for National Statistics/Job Centre Plus

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 Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

What is Big Local?

4 words to describe Big Local?

- 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.

Big Local four programme outcomes;

- 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

Big Local areas committed funds 2018.

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

Thoughts from the Community

Continued conversations with local people have expressed a variety of views about our area: please
find below the themes brought up to our community researchers; in green what they like, in red
thing people don’t like, and in blue things, they would like to change.

*Xmas Event Town Hall

Gardens December 2017

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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

*Easter Event Luton

Millennium Green April 2018

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 Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

Establishing the new Plan

(Some things take time)

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;

- Basic ESOL, numeracy, literacy;

- Different levels of English;
- People attaining recognised educational qualifications;
- Gaining employment.

We have secured “The Arches” community space on Luton Road until

September 2019 with potential opportunity to extend beyond this but with
contingency funding should we need to move. We plan to continue to use
this location as a focal point for Arches Local activities in that promote better social investment in
the area. This will help better develop the local economy encouraging in the long term better range
of stable well paid job opportunities.

Open Spaces & The Environment

(Securing legacy Shaping the Future)

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.

We would also still like to make funding available to be used to match

against other potential funding bids i.e. MHCLG, Heritage Lottery
Funding, or to directly further develop in partnerships open spaces in
the area. In particular Town Hall Garden park, as its development is
still often raised and important to local people.

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 Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

Though some work has been carried around the visual

appearance of the area especially around the Luton Arches
about its general cleanliness. We would like to carry out work
to address these issues in beautifying the railings with paint,
flowers and street art.

All the services previously provided at the recycling centre

situated within Luton Road Shoppers Car Park have been
removed leaving no offering in that location. We wish to
Increase the use of the recycling in the Arches Local area.
There is clear local need which can be visibly seen with more
fly tipping present in that area and in general. We want to
promote and encourage initatives that;

- Reduce fly tipping in the area the area is more visually

attractive and promotes wellbeing;
- Improve the look of street furniture and general look
of area;
- People travelling less reducing their carbon footprint
demand led recycling;
- Introduction of Electric Car Charging Points (Future
Proofing the area).

We wish to make a siginicant amount of funding available to

develop an urban tree planting strategy to communicate our
intentions to plant more tree in key areas and there is broad support
recorded around increasing the number of trees planted. This
funding can also been used to lever in additional funding by being
matched with other potential funding available.

We have spoken with local people recording where they think

planting new trees is needed or area would benefit from. We have
met with and discussed our plan with the Local Authority who have
been very supportive of the idea. We have also spoken to other
areas in central and greater London who have been planting more
trees where they live.

We believe the tree planting scheme is something we should be

looking at for Luton Road and also the Brook and is incorporated
within our Neighbourhood Planning aims/strategy as we can use it
to pressure/direct developers to contribute, build in design
guidelines to accommodate more trees in future and existing developments. How many trees have
been planted upon the Brook with all the flats that have gone up recently, not many to our
knowledge and we have been appeased with a green roof or 2 (that look brown). It would be great
to see something like the below along the Brook and parts of Luton Road

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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.

We have spoken as mentioned with other groups earlier including

Xanthe from Brockley Street Trees
https://brockleystreettrees.blogspot.com/ these were some of
the takeaways from our discussion which was very positive and
they were very keen to offer advice and aid.

- No point looking at areas that are red routed (double

yellow lines are ok, have been discussions though to red
route the brook);
- Brokered deals with local businesses and local residents
around the cost of planting and watering (trees may need
regular watering for up to 3 years);
- Paid raised money to the local authority who hired
subcontractors to plant the trees;
- Evidence that the planting of Trees slows traffic;
- Understanding that the tree is potentially being planted
in a toxic environment (multi-layers of road and
pavement along most of Luton road) This will impact the
cost of planting a tree making it more costly;

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 Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

Luton Road Gas Works March 2018 (Toxic Enviroment)

- 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

Around tree choice, we have similar flowering trees

already in the area whose height unlikely to exceed
10m within 25 years (called Prunus ‘Ichiyo’ upright
tree, pink flowers, and is said to be an excellent
street tree).

Will continue to work with and incorporate work

and information gained through the neighbourhood
planning process. Below we have provided an
image of how trees could look outside our
community space and the many benefits of having
and planting more urban trees. We look forward to
planting more tree throughout the Year 4 Plan.

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 Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

Private Rented Sector Housing

(Shaping the Future)

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;

- To solve the democratic deficit, improving localism.

- 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.

Getting More Active

(Right Price, Right Place, Right Time)

To respond to this challenge we will continue to have a mix of funding

types to support the partnership, local residents, and organisations to
provide a range of safe cohesive activities for young people and the
wider community across the Arches Local area. We would also like to
improve infrastructure available for such activities through
encouraging new developments or make existing spaces and facilities
more accessible by;

- 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.

Through the successful activites i.e Fit and Fed that we

have run from Luton Junior School playing field, which
can be accessed separately from the school. The
partnership would like to use some funding to further
develop that area so that it can be opened up and used
more often. Unfortunately we found during the
summer holidays it is also an area experiencing high
levels of antisocial behaviour i.e drug taking/selling. It
was felt this funding would help:

- Open up the space i.e remove vegetation, raise

tree canopies and discourage often hidden
anti-social behaviour;
- Provide sports and play equipment, mark out
help maintain pitches/areas;
- Increase the resident and demand driven
activities that could be run there;
- Help shape the further development of the
space i.e storage, toilets, changing facilities;
- Act as another secure community space that people can access opportunities to be more
active and come together.

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 Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

Whole Community
(Develop opportunities for connections)

There is still work required to develop better cohesion in the

community and a lack of opportunities for the community to
create connections to better understand each other,
discover commonality, and promote cohesion. Local
organisations or individuals can still apply for funding that
will be allocated to help create these opportunities for the
community to get together across the area by providing
activities and events which promote community safety and
community cohesion by:

- Increasing the range of activities available for people

living in the area and encourage the growth of local
initiatives that are designed and run by residents;
- Supporting residents to make their community a
better place by bringing people together of different
ages, cultures, faiths, communities.

Recognising the large number of senior and elderly people

living in our area, the importance of the older generations
and those suffering from social isolation, local organisations

or individuals can apply for funding for activities

that benefit senior and elderly people across the
area by providing activities and events which
promote community safety and community
cohesion by:

- Increasing the range of activities

available for senior and elderly people
living in the area and encourage the
growth of local initiatives that are
designed and run by residents;
- Supporting residents to make their
community a better place by bringing
older people together of different,
cultures, faiths, communities;
- Develop stronger relationships for
elderly people with the wider
community and local services.

Allocate funding for local organisations or

individuals to develop an Arches Local Young
Persons’ Forum where members will get the experience of developing their thoughts and arguments
and gain confidence in their own views and opinions. Since MY Trust (formerly Medway Youth)
Trust youth forum appears to longer meet this is now even more important to develop with
potential to run it from the new WREC centre in the Pentagon Shopping centre.

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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)

There is the continued recurring themes of issues with drugs

and alcohol being recorded at all the Big Local
engagement events. It effects visually can be seen daily
in the area through the proliferation of drink related
and drug paraphernalia litter on and just off busy roads
and within our parks. The effects of this and people life
style choices can been seen in expected life expectancy in
the area with the average for a Male and Female being 75
and 81 compared to a South East average of 80 and 84.

We wish to further develop and encourage successful initiatives

that we ran in Year 3 like the Community Boxing sessions and
Afternoon Boxing sessions at local schools with Olympia Boxing
and Medway Sport and our Fit and Fed program. To make
funding available to continue our work with organisations like
Open Road in helping people with recovery from dependency
working on our community allotment and open spaces. We will
make funding available for developing the following desired
outcomes:

- More early intervention to help better influence

behaviour;
- Additional diversionary activities for people suffering
from dependency issues;
- A menu of services activities for young people;
- More engagement by people and families suffering from
dependency issues;
- Raised engagement and a better understanding
of dependency issues across all Big Local areas;
- Stronger relationships between the participants, the
community and local services;
- Identify the correlation between environment and the
issues of dependency;
- Signpost to other Services and Organisations.

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 Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

Partnership Development & Delivery

(Delivering the plan and investing in developing local people)

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;

- Developing and formalising structures to support involvement and participation of residents,

local resident-led organisations and other organisations;
- Deliver elements of the plan and adjust as appropriate with partnership consensus;
- Regular communication across all mediums;
- Develop relationships with local organisations regarding plans;
- Events / social engagements to encourage groups and individuals to mix;
- Partnership development activities and training upskilling opportunities for Arches Local
residents.

Five principles for a successful relationship between councils and

communities

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"

Stephen, Arches Big Local area, Medway.

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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

Arches Local Apprentice Salary 37 Hours per week £8.75 16,835

plus 20% on Costs 3,400

Arches Local plan delivery officer Additional Staffing Costs 25,000

plus 20% on Costs 5,000
£89,735
8 Other Core Costs
Communication Newsletter, Social Media Advertising, Printing, Survey Monkey, Vimeo, etc. 6,000
Website Hosting, Maintenance, Editing, and Redesigning 1,500
Training Budget Training for Arches Local Workers & Partnership 6,000
Office Supplies Office Equipment, Printing Supplies, Stationary 1,500
£15,000

Total Year 4 £280,535

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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

Appendix A:
Big Local Delivery/Campaign Officer Post:

Arches Local - Big Local

JOB DESCRIPTION

Title of post: Arches Local Big Local Delivery/Campaign Officer

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

Main Duties and Responsibilities

• Work with and support the Arches Local Coordinator to continue to deliver the Arches Local
plan;

• 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)

• Undertake small scale research projects and draft research reports;

• Influence policy to encourage regeneration of natural and living environment.

• Draft relevant blogs and other web content;

• Work collaboratively with colleagues taking on other tasks as necessary.

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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;

• excellent writing and presentation skills;

• good analytical skills and an ability to get to the nub of things quickly;

• strong research skills;

• 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;

• a responsible attitude to work;

• good judgement;

• good team working skills;

• a capacity to build strong relationships within the team and with external stakeholders;

• a willingness to undertake administrative tasks.

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.

We hope to have someone in post by the end of April 2019.

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Arches Local Big Local Year 4 Plan

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