Affinity Sutton - Green Spaces & Young People: The view from a housing provider
1. Green Spaces & Young People: The view
from a housing provider- Affinity Sutton
Andrew Cooper- Neighbourhood
Investment Manager
25 September 2012
2. Why improve green spaces?
• Affinity Sutton is a housing association which has 57,000 properties across
England
• Recognised that there is a very strong business case for improving green spaces
• Residents feedback- improving appearance of where they lived was a priority for
them and would increase customer satisfaction
• Helps make our estates look better and places people want to live
• Many costs and problems result from isolation and economic inactivity – ASB, rent
arrears and general dissatisfaction
• Make the areas more desirable places to live
• Neighbourhoods Green project raised awareness for housing providers
4. Cultiv8 and Affinity Sutton
• Affinity Sutton is a housing association which has 57,000
properties across England
• Cultiv8 is our green spaces project and involves bulb and tree
planting, allotments and natural play areas, community gyms
• It links into national priorities around heath and well being and
community cohesion
• Vital to engage with young people about green spaces, under
16’s make up 20% of national population and on some housing
estates this can be up to 50%
• Young people have enjoyed been involved and making a
difference to their neighbourhoods
5. Greener Neighbourhoods
Affinity Sutton is working with residents on a range of exciting green
projects including:
• Local kitchen gardens
• Community allotments
• Urban orchards
• Outdoor gyms
• Conservation initiatives
• Natural play areas
6. Greener Neighbourhoods
Affinity Sutton is working with residents on a range of exciting green
projects including:
• Local kitchen gardens
• Community allotments
• Urban orchards
• Outdoor gyms
• Conservation initiatives
• Natural play areas
7. Our approach
Affinity Sutton is working with residents on a range of exciting green
projects our approach has been community led:
1. Identify priorities for local areas and consult
2.Engage residents and partner organisations and identify funding
3.Deliver allotments/ community gardens/ play areas to meet local
needs
12. Key partners
• Our residents
• Ground maintenance contractors
• Groundwork
• Environmental Charities/ youth service and youth
organisations
• Schools
• Police
• Royal Horticultural Society/ Colleges/ Community
Cafes/ Food Co-ops
13. Youth Engagement
Young People
5-11 11-16 16-25
Intervention Ambassadors
Bradford & Penge National & Estate
Sport Arts Community
Olympics Roots Showcase Funding model
14. Outcomes for Affinity Sutton
• 38 bulb planting events held in 2011
• 4 new allotment projects
• 2 community gyms, 3 new play areas/ parks
• More community volunteers
• More engagement with residents
• Increase in customer satisfaction
• Over £800,000 invested in green spaces in
2011/12 over half from external sources
Our vision is to offer a range of activities for our young people, through working with partners across all of our estates. Currently, there is a wide variety of activities offered to our young people that fall into the three key themes of Sport, Arts and Community . We aim to continue this provision by working up a sustainable plan with our partners. For example, we aim to create young community leaders in each of the themes so as to build skills in our communities and leave legacies following each project. We are also aiming to create National PR opportunities through arranging National events to bring our young people from different estates together. In 2012 we are aiming to go one stage further and offer more developed programmes for our young people, in order to offer ‘a menu’ of engagement for our young people. These will include: Intervention programmes- aimed at vulnerable and hard to reach young people. These projects will target ASB hot spot areas and will involve working with Housing Officers in order to identify the key problems. An example of this is a project taking place in Penge in London and Bradford in the North and involves working in partnership with Brathay Trust who specialise in creating intensive support programmes. Ambassadors- National Ambassadors- are our first team of young people who will help to shape and promote youth activity across England. They will receive tailored training and support in order to help them to fulfil this role and will be involved with a range of national activities including creating youth website pages; running youth conferences; report on youth related issues; and be a positive voice for our young people. Estate Ambassadors- will involve working closely with Resident Involvement and the RAP committee to create opportunities for our young people to have a local voice and be provided with an alternative way to engage with our services. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Joe Rich.
