Reports
community organisers survey resultsIn February 2012, Urban Forum carried out a survey looking at what community groups knew about community organising and the Community Organisers national programme being run by Locality, as well as the benefits and challenges that they thought that the programme may or will offer their local area. There were 152 respondents to the survey, reflecting the amount of attention paid to the Community Organisers programme in national media, especially when compared to the relatively low levels of coverage of other aspects of Big Society and Localism such as Community Rights.
Over the course of December 2011 to March 2012, we held a series of 12 events across England on community rights and neighbourhood planning. These events were held in partnership with NAVCA and a number of our local members and supported by Planning Aid and Locality. In organising the events, we wanted to engage community groups on this new policy agenda, and hoped to increase the level of awareness and understanding of community rights. We also wanted to investigate how opinions and understanding of community rights had changed since we conducted research in the Summer of 2011. The report findings are based on the opinions of over 200 participants at the events.
Urban Forum has published a new report into tenant management organisations, which considers how the decades of experience of residents managing their own housing services fits into the localism and decentralisation agenda today.
Urban Forum has conducted a detailed survey of activists in local VCS organisations on their perceptions of community rights (Community Right to Buy, Right to Build, Right to Challenge, as well as neighbourhood planning) and community groups' abilities to take advantage of new opportunities.
This report summarises and analyses the results of the survey and draws some conclusions about support needed to overcome barriers to taking up community rights.
Urban Forum's innovative Bridging the Mismatch programme has now been published as a report. The programme looked at how how relationships between communities and public bodies can be strengthened; a vital requirement in these challenging times.
