Introduction

What is community development?

When our Area Committees were first set up we asked local people what they valued most in their villages or towns, expecting it might be the sunken lanes or the beautiful views. But, time and again, what was most important was the sense of community: how well you knew your neighbours and what opportunities there were to get together within the village.

Community development is about creating those opportunities. The central idea is for communities to decide on their own needs and to set about meeting the needs themselves.

Very often, community development starts spontaneously: someone recognises a need or an opportunity and the project grows. That happened in Newton Valence when the residents decided to refurbish the village hall. They went ahead, contributing much of the funding themselves, but they turned to the District Council for a grant and for advice on other fund-raising opportunities. The refurbished hall quickly transformed the quality of village life and has remained its centre for nearly ten years.

But some projects need more help than others and Parish and District Councils can provide that help.

We can go further and encourage communities to think about their priorities; the recent spate of Village Design Statements and Village Appraisals is an example. The District Council ran a one-day course on Village Appraisals for Parish Councils and many such projects were started. As each one has been completed and presented to Council the same comment has been made: “this has brought the village together”. That is community development and the Council was the catalyst.

Background to the report

A few years ago we were unusual in having Area Committees and asking residents to think about their priorities. We were runners-up for two years running in the Council of the Year award just because we listened. Now consulting and community leadership are all the fashion and councils are expected to help their communities develop. Indeed, the Audit Commission inspected our Best Value review of Community Services and wrote (Appendix 4):

“In particular the Council had not demonstrated how it would. . . increase its ability to meet community needs by better coordinating community development work carried out by different parts of the Council”

They went on to write:

“The Council must improve the support it gives to communities and the voluntary sector by better coordination of the Council’s various community development activities. This would include (as a minimum) the work of the Area Community Committees, work on health development and sustainable development as well as the areas covered by this inspection.”

The Scrutiny Committee had already decided to study this topic but the two quotations illustrate how fast ideas move in local government and how all Councils now need to support and work with communities and voluntary organisations.

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