Community Conversations – Brockworth and Longford

By 2019 we had spent several years using conversations as the starting point for our Community Organising work, and we began exploring how that approach could also help organisations that genuinely wanted to understand their communities.

The idea behind our Community Conversation Programme was simple. Rather than beginning with a project and asking people what they thought about it, we would start by listening.
We asked people what they liked about where they lived, what concerned them, what they would like their community to look like in the future and, importantly, what ideas they had themselves.

The conversations could then be brought together to give an organisation a much richer understanding of its community, while also helping identify people who might want to become involved in what happened next.

Brockworth

We tested the approach with Brockworth Link during 2019, they commissioned a conversation to discover what people thought of Brockworth and also of Brockworth Link, during the work we had  304 conversations with local residents.

People told us a great deal about what they valued. They talked about Brockworth being peaceful, its community and village feel, good neighbours, access to the countryside and its location between Gloucester and Cheltenham.

They also talked about concerns, including development and the pressure this was putting on local infrastructure, litter and upkeep, loss of green space, traffic, parking and speeding, and the lack of things for young people to do.

We did not stop at asking about problems. We also asked people what they wanted for Brockworth and what ideas they had themselves.
 Those ideas ranged from youth clubs and places for young people to meet to community events, concerts, fetes and other opportunities for people to come together.

The conversations also helped Brockworth Link understand how well local residents knew the organisation and its library, how they were using it and whether people might be interested in volunteering.

Longford
 
We also worked with Longford Village Hall Group and Longford Parish Council, at a time when decisions were being considered about investment connected to new development in the area - this gave us an opportunity to listen before decisions had been made.

We knocked on 781 doors across Longford and had 190 full conversations with residents, supplemented by pop-up conversations and other engagement in different parts of what is a geographically spread-out community.

People talked about loving Longford’s quiet character, good neighbours, countryside and sense of community, while also expressing concerns about rapid development, loss of green space and village identity, traffic, road safety and the lack of activities for young people. One of the strongest themes was how old and new Longford could grow together.

We also asked people whether, and how they might like to become involved. Not everybody wanted an ongoing commitment, but some said they would help with events, fundraising, litter picks or meetings if the opportunities were flexible.

Again, the conversations produced ideas rather than simply a list of concerns. Residents talked about developing the Village Hall into more of a community hub, with a café emerging as the most popular idea, alongside family events, children’s activities, health and wellbeing opportunities, lunch clubs and activities that could help reduce isolation.

Across Brockworth and Longford we held almost 500 recorded conversations.
We had intended to develop the Community Conversation Programme further during 2020, but Covid changed both what communities needed and our ability to work face-to-face.

What the pilots had already shown us, however, was that community conversations could provide organisations with useful evidence without losing the part that matters most to us and to the communities: the relationships, ideas and people with the potential to take action that emerge when you genuinely listen