Hartcliffe Safer Streets

In 2022 Bristol City Council were awarded funding as part of the Home Office Safer Streets (4) initiative, aimed at reducing crime and anti social behaviour.  Bristol had two target areas with high levels of crime and anti social behaviour being reported for the fund – parts of Hartcliffe and parts of Bedminster. 

As part of this, in October 2022 a group of residents from Hartcliffe started meeting to plan a consultation event for their neighbourhood to gather the views of the wider community. 

Liz, a member of the group says; "In October 2022 my friend Rachael invited me to a community meeting about Safer Streets.  I went along and met Sam and Claire from Bristol City Council and other residents who shared the same concerns about the area as I did.  We met weekly over November to January to plan a conversation with the wider community and this event happened on 21st January 2023." 

"We used a process called World Café in order to gather the view points of all the residents who came along. Part of the process of running a world café event is making sure the questions we asked would give us the information we needed to then use as criteria for a small grants fund which we would be designing and delivering together using a participatory budgeting approach."

"We held a practice event to make sure we knew what the roles we had volunteered for would entail.  Lots of people from the council and the community came to volunteer as participants at our practice event which was really helpful and gave us some insights into how we could do things differently at the public event to make sure it was as successful as possible." 

"During our weekly sessions we learned a lot of different skills including; facilitation skills, engaging in circle practice and running check ins and check outs, poster designing, co-designing processes and world café hosting.  Of course, more importantly, we also learned about each other and made friends along the way."

"We worked hard to make sure we reached lots of people in the community and told them about the event.  Once we’d designed the poster as a group, everyone took responsibility for some publicity.  This meant putting posters up around the community as well as posting leaflets through doors."  

"I also worked with Claire to do some door knocking, engaging local residents in conversation about the project.  Some of the blocks of flats we visited are viewed as no go areas so I was nervous about doing this at first but Claire’s support meant I soon got into a stride and enjoyed it.  It was eye opening talking to people about their experience of living in a block, it’s a different community altogether.  The first couple of doors I did with Claire but I soon got the confidence to do it alone which meant we talked to more people." 

"The event was really successful and we had around 40 local people taking part in the conversation which has given us the confidence to design the next stage of the project which is a small grants pot currently being advertised."   

Another member of the group, Marilyn says; 

"I am very pleased to be part and involved from the beginning on this project. It is led by residents, with the ideas and planning coming from us, sort of ownership." 

"It has given me the opportunity to meet new friends in the group and build up friendships. Through the project I met someone who I first met a few years ago.  She has now become an active member and supporter in our group. I love the check in and check out, sharing our life experiences." 

Other group members shared one positive thing they had enjoyed about being involved; 

Steff – Spending time with like minded people, thinking about solutions instead of problems. 

Kat – I didn’t think I had anything to offer but now I know I do and I’ve gotten involved with other things because of it. 

Lewis – feel more involved with other people 

Rachael – I’ve made new friends  

 You can read more about the next steps of the project here -  Hartcliffe Safer Streets  

Following the successful World Café Event, which was hosted by residents, they continued to meet to design the next stage which was about something called Participatory Budgeting. 

Participatory Budgeting is a process where the community get to make decisions on where money gets spent in their community. 

There was approximately £20,000 available for local people to bid for projects that would reduce the impact of crime and ASB in Hartcliffe.  The group wanted to make sure that residents who maybe hadn’t been involved in community action before, were able to apply and so it was important to ensure the application process was as simple as possible. 

They worked hard on deciding the criteria and the council's community development facilitated the process by agreeing to use an online platform call Social Change Nest to enable funds to go to groups of residents who weren’t a formalised as a group. 

The small grants fund was launched in March and, as a result of all the hard work by the residents in getting the word out, 11 eligible applications were received.  

Those applicants were invited to an event in May, attended by 60 local people. each project had to give presentations to the wider community on what they wanted to do.  Those present then voted on their favourite projects, and 7 out of 11 projects received funding. 

It was a fun event where lots of connections were made.  It was a shame that not all the applications could be funded but hopefully there will be other opportunities for them in the future.   

Some of the people who attended the event took part in an evaluation. Everyone said they had enjoyed the event; 35 people said they felt able to influence the outcome; 36 people said they would be more likely to get involved in this sort of event in the future and 43 people thought they or their family would benefit from the projects that were funded. 

The funded projects will now take place over the summer and we are looking forward to hearing how they go!  You can find out more here -  https://saferstreets.hartcliffe.org/  

Following the event the organising team reflected on their learning.   

The participants felt that the group had worked well together – Liz said she had felt able to have open and honest discussions and Vladi added that everyone was given the space to speak and voice their opinions without being led in any way. And Lewis liked the fact that he could question things and felt able to express his opinions. 

Steff thought the planning sessions had been enjoyable and felt purposeful.  He added that there was a sense of teamwork and respect present in the planning meetings.  The facilitation tools used by Sam and Claire were good for engaging people and gaining commitment. 

When we talked about learning points for future projects we discussed a conflict that had arisen around whether groups should have been allowed to apply for more than one grant and how we managed it as a group.   

Marilyn’s thoughts were ‘In managing the conflict, it would be better if the decision had not been made straight away by the group. We should have asked an independent person who are not involved in the project to make a decision’   

Vladi said ‘I think if I had to vote again I might not have agreed to allow two applications but as it was that was the decision we made so that’s what we had to go with.’ 

Overall the group thought that if we had had more time to discuss all the possibilities it would help to make a smoother process, and avoid any conflict.  This was the main learning point people wanted to take forward for future. 

Nevenka said being involved in the process had changed her thinking about her community – ‘there are lots of people here who are willing to work to make it a better place.  But I’ve also discovered how affected and unsafe the area is and I realise how the area needs so many more projects and much more support.  Lots of improvement needed.  I’m amazed by how much people want to contribute.’ 

And Vladi added ‘I feel much better connected within my community that I didn’t feel connected to before.’  

So, following the hard work of the group of residents, and the successful administration of the funds to local, resident led projects, the projects were carried out over the summer of 2023.

When planning the criteria for the fund it was decided that, as part of the monitoring and evaluation, the projects would be required to take part in a closing event to showcase the work of their projects. 

The funded projects then came together to celebrate their achievements.  On a Saturday in October 2023, around 50 people came along to find out what the projects the community voted for had been up to. 

Communities Together 

This was a new resident led group which was set up to apply for Safer Street funding. It has been running social activity sessions for all the community on Monday evenings and on Tuesdays during the day.  Activities have included quizzes, board games, arts and crafts, parent and toddler sessions and a community lunch.  Their funding has allowed them to continue running at Mowcroft Church every week during and winter – and they plan on continuing. 

Coderz 

Coderz was another group which was set up to apply for Safer Streets funding. They ran two summer camps over the six week holiday – one on website design and one on game design.  They were very popular and oversubscribed and the group are now looking for funding to provide further courses. They have now gone on to become a Community Interest Company and have been awarded other funding to continue their work.

Spacemakers 

The Safer Streets funding paid for graffiti workshops for young people to redesign the shelter in Spacemakers park.  This has been a part of a wider piece of work by the Spacemakers group to improve and renovate the park. 

Hartcliffe Club for Young People 

At the participatory budgeting event in May we heard from Tremaine about the great work done at Hartcliffe Club for Young People and the community awarded funding for the development of a music room with all the equipment and renovations that would require.  Young people are now enjoying making their own music. 

 Hartcliffe BMX track  

Funding this project meant that the popular weekly BMX sessions could continue under the expert guidance of Simon Long.   

There was a real buzz in the room as everyone asked lots of questions of the funded projects and enjoyed a buffet lunch together.   

We also had a visit from the Lord Mayor of Bristol who said ‘I was impressed by the work and commitment that has gone into the many projects from everyone involved in them…It is obvious there is great potential to extend and expand the projects both within Hartcliffe and more widely in the city.  This has been a great example to us all!’ 

You can read more detailed stories of how all the projects went by visiting -  Safer Streets Hartcliffe - The Projects (arcgis.com) 

The process was captured by a local artist - you can see the journey of the project in the illustrations below;