Neighbourhood Management for Community Benefit

School of Applied Social Science – 3VA (Eastbourne)

This project will enable the university, the local CVS, the local authority and local community groups to all work together to strengthen the local community.

Eastbourne introduced a Neighbourhood Management initiative to 3 areas of the town in 2010 to enable the local community to have a greater say in what happens, to support each other, and over time take on projects and community activities of their own.

This project aims to strengthen this important initiative by:

• Highlighting recognised models of good practice in Neighbourhood Management to inform the development of Neighbourhood Management in Eastbourne

• Providing academic credibility to approaches, calling on researcher's expertise in the field of community participation and empowerment.

• Strengthening links between local community groups, the Local Strategic Partnership and the University.

Skill sets from partners are complimentary and present opportunities for knowledge exchange. These include the opportunity for the University to share the wide range of emerging information they have access to with 3VA and their partners, thereby ensuring new knowledge in relevant areas is made available 'in the field' quickly. Similarly, the University will have the opportunity to learn from activity taking place within the community, in particular the chance to co-design and participate in an event using participatory methods with a wide range of stakeholders.

The outcomes of the project include a package of support for local community groups which includes ways of enabling groups to identify for themselves what their training, support and development needs are and secondly expert support from us to help them to achieve this. We also hope that material developed can be used in the university as teaching materials.

A partnership approach to helping people to help themselves, as this will deliver the stronger communities that will benefit all in Eastbourne. Working with other local providers (that are taking responsibility for the three NM pilots) to build neighbourly, mutual relationships to support local communities will also support the positioning of the university as a partner in the general response to community need in line with other providers in Eastbourne.

Project Partners Adam Chugg, Chief Officer (3VA)

Bob Granville, Director of Housing Services Eastbourne Homes Ltd

Ian Fitzpatrick, Senior Head of Community Eastbourne Borough Council

School of Applied Social Sciences (University of Brighton)