Investing in Communities

What is it all about?

This project shows that we understand that residents and communities are essential to helping achieve our Vision for the National Park. It heralds a new approach to helping local people develop action plans for their communities. These action plans will help to ensure the viability and sustainability of communities in the Lake District and influence the strategic decisions that affect them.

Who is involved?

The community focus of this new approach is reflected in the partnership that has come together for the first time. These partners are:

The Lake District National Park Authority as Local Planning Authority - LDNPA
Action with Communities in Cumbria (opens in new window), Cumbria’s rural community council - ACT
Cumbria Rural Housing Trust (opens in new window), a charity working with communities to address their particular housing needs - CRHT

What can it offer our community?

During the project we will:

Meet with community members
Explain the community action planning approach
Help you decide a course of action
Help establish a steering group, if necessary
Contribute towards the funding needed for community action planning
Help with gathering and analysing evidence about local needs and priorities
Support participants with training
Help you to talk to other authorities and agencies about your plans
Advise on ways of implementing actions and sharing the findings with other agencies
Offer a grant scheme to help achieve specific actions (conditions apply) and/or advise on other funding sources

For our part the project partners hope to learn how we can make most effective use of our resources for supporting such community initiatives.

Where is the money coming from?

Funding for the project comes from a successful bid to the HM Treasury Invest to Save Budget (opens in new window).and runs until March 2010.

What's happening?

Coming up:

LDNP to develop procedure for using community-led planning evidence to help inform planning decisions and reference in officer report, as appropriate.

In progress:

Dedicated LDNPA Development Management - planning - contacts for cluster groups
Working with the Allerdale Parishes of Blindbothel, Lorton, Loweswater and Buttermere - Melbreak Cluster - to look at ways community-led planning could help them
Working with a Keswick cluster of parishes - The Derwent 7 - and a Mid and South Copeland cluster of parishes, to progress their community-led planning ideas and aspirations
Funding towards Community Plan Coordinator posts for the above clusters
The funding of 34 housing needs surveys, undertaken by CRHT, within the Lake District
ACT offers dedicated support for the management/development of community buildings and operates a small grants scheme to help deliver services and activities connected to them
The LDNPA has a grants scheme to help communities deliver actions or projects, with a focus on those which have a low or zero impact on climate change
The LDNPA Development Management team - planners - now offer a dedicated ‘housing co-ordinator’ to help communities find sites for affordable housing in their locality

Completed:

Feb 09 - A trip to see a successful Community Land Trust in action in Northumberland)
Jan/Feb/April 09 - Funding towards village hall refurbishment work at Threlkeld, Thirlmere and Witherslack
Nov 08 - In association with CALC, we hosted a series of three Planning Seminars for Parish Councils to learn more about how planning works in the National Park
Oct 08 - Community Land Trust web pages include links to other organisations and a range of downloadable resources such as the CLT Handbook, a guide to Sustainable Construction for affordable housing and speaker presentations and feedback from the Owning the Assets conference
June 08 - ‘Owning the Assets’ conference, organised by Cumbria Rural Housing Trust and the Development Trusts Association. This aired the advantages and challenges of community asset creation and to signpost to other support at hand.
Jan 08 - Andy Lloyd was appointed as Community Land Trust project officer for Cumbria. Andy is working with communities and decision makers within Cumbria and the Lake District to help find solutions to the lack of affordable housing
April 07 - Funding towards a study of community provision and services, for the Eden community of Threlkeld. Their 2004 Parish Plan identified the need to establish exactly what type of shopping and community facilities were needed for the residents of the village

Contact us

If you would like help to deliver community planning based activities in your area please contact one of the project partners for further information:

Clive Wickham, our Community Enabler 01539 792661

Cumbria Rural Housing Trust - Judith Derbyshire, Manager 01768 210265

Action with Communities in Cumbria - Roger Roberts, Chief Executive 01768 840827