LIFE+ Climate Proofing Social Housing Landscapes - Community Engagement Report

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LIFE+ Climate-Proofing Social Housing Landscapes Community Engagement Report

With the contribution of the LIFE financial instrument of the European Community.

Project No: LIFE12 ENV/UK/001133

Groundwork London 18 – 21 Morley Street London SE1 7QZ Telephone 020 7922 1230 LONDON@groundwork.org.uk www.groundwork.org.uk/london

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Contents Contents .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 2 Table of figures .................................................................................................................................................................................. 2 Purpose ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Background......................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Aims of the engagement................................................................................................................................................................. 4 Engagement methodology ............................................................................................................................................................ 4 Engagement outputs ....................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Community engagement highlights ........................................................................................................................................... 6 Themes from the community engagement ........................................................................................................................... 10 Lesson learnt ................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Appendices ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 15

Table of figures Figure 1: Projected and achieved community engagement outputs .............................................................................. 5 Figure 2: Tanisha building a bird box at a sustainability champions training session ............................................... 7 Figure 3: Groundwork landscape architect Marion Phillips in discussion with Queen Caroline residents ...... 8 Figure 4: One of the entries to the Queen Caroline photography competition ......................................................... 9 Figure 5: Members of the Cheeseman's Terrace gardening club planting up a balcony ...................................... 10

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Purpose This report provides an overview of the progress toward the project’s community engagement targets and also highlights the successes of the transferrable engagement methodology for resident stakeholder engagement that has been developed through the programme. This methodology has enabled us to provide residents with knowledge around climate change and green infrastructure and has led to them being involved in training, consultation, practical gardening, energy saving and future planning activities.

Background This project aims to demonstrate the strategic potential of retrofitting lightly-engineered blue and green infrastructure measures into housing estates to adapt urban areas to climate change. Supporting this we delivered a range of activities targeted at local residents, Local Authority officers and their contractors, as well as policy-makers, to increase the adaptive capacity of the institutions that exist in this context.

The project is focused upon 3 housing estates in the West London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham – namely, Queen Caroline Estate, Cheeseman’s Terrace and the Maystar Estate, and Cyril Thatcher, Richard Knight and Eric MacDonald Houses. The estates differ significantly in size, with Queen Caroline Estate holding 561 households, Cheeseman’s and Maystar 295 and Cyril Thatcher, Richard Knight and Eric MacDonald only 30. The balance between leaseholders and tenants is 82%, 75% and 63% respectively across the three estates, according to the latest figures available from the Local Authority.

The project is co-funded by the EU LIFE+ Programme. Groundwork London acts as the Co-ordinating Beneficiary for the project, with the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (LBHF) as the Associated Beneficiary. The programme began in July 2013 and finished in September 2016.

The community engagement aspects of the project recognise that the local community often has important knowledge that may not be readily available to an outsider, but which may be extremely valuable in the development of projects. By undertaking community engagement, we are able to gain access to this information, whilst at the same time helping residents to understand the benefits and securing their support for the project. Green infrastructure can be an abstract concept to community groups; engagement helps to create understanding, and gets people thinking about different ways of using green spaces.

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Aims of the engagement The engagement programme aimed to increase the community’s adaptive capacity to climate change and involve residents in the proposed works for their estate.

More specifically, the engagement aimed, in the first place, to increase education and awareness about climate challenges, threats and opportunities at a local as well as a global scale. These activities have led to a local Adaptation Plan for each estate and increased local resilience to the impacts of climate change, improved responsibility for resource efficiency and management of open spaces through involvement in the design and maintenance of green infrastructure features, and a stronger sense of community in the intervention areas.

Secondly the engagement activities were used as a platform by which we were able to consult the residents on the current state of the estate and its use, the green infrastructure measures that were installed and the environmental and social functions of each measure. The engagement was also a means by which residents were encouraged and supported to become actively involved in the implementation and ongoing use and maintenance of individual measures such as rain gardens, rain water harvesting, tree planting and food growing beds.

Engagement methodology A diverse range of engagement activities has been delivered during the project, which has allowed residents and the wider community to become involved with the project in ways that suit them. The approach used to engage residents was as follows: 

Develop a detailed community engagement plan at the start of the project, identifying who to engage, the key opportunities to do so, and the appropriate methods of engagement;



Holding launch events to introduce the project to each estate;



Engage the Tenant and Resident Associations (TRAs) and other interested resident groups on the estates in meetings, including involving them in the development and delivery of engagement plans and regularly attending resident meetings in order to get feedback and provide updates on project progress;



Initial consultation phase to understand how residents use the green spaces on their estate, problems they experience, and improvements they would like to see;

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Involve residents in mapping their estate’s environmental issues and ideas for solutions, reviewing the resulting assessments and the designs put forward;



Share concept designs with residents, bringing the project to life and helping residents to visualise the improvements that could take place;



Use initial consultation on the designs to develop an ongoing plan of activities that are unique to each estate and look at adaptation to climate change more broadly;



A range of workshops, events, leaflet dropping and surveys (through door knocking) to keep residents engaged throughout the project and understand their views on its impacts;



Energy and water efficiency home visits through Groundwork’s Green Doctor programme;



Food growing and gardening clubs;



Sustainability champions training sessions, to equip local residents with the skills and understanding to manage their green space assets effectively;



Development of noticeboards for each estate informing residents of works implemented and their benefits;



Events on each estate to celebrate the completion of capital works;



Engagement in estate climate adaptation plans, including through estate walkabouts and photography competitions;



Use researched Social Return on Investment (SROI) outcomes questions to baseline and assess the change in social outcomes perceived by residents as a result of the project and how that compares to the investment committed.

Engagement outputs The specific output targets and achievements for community engagement were as follows: Output target

Output achieved

3 site-specific community adaptation plans

3

300 local people engaged

472

578 households reached

1,236

36 community activities delivered

55

12 sustainability champions recruited

8

Figure 1: Projected and achieved community engagement outputs

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LIFE12 ENV/UK/001133 300 local people engaged – For this output we have exceeded the target specified. This includes attendance at events, training sessions, gardening clubs, energy efficiency home visits and community meetings. It was possible to exceed this target due to the diversity of our engagement activities, which have allowed people to become involved with project in ways which suit them.

578 households reached – We greatly exceed this target; this transpired due to us communicating the project to other LBHF residents outside the three estates that were the focus of this project. We did this through inviting other residents to training sessions and presenting the project at resident focused borough forums.

36 community activities delivered – This target was also surpassed. We were able to do this by creating a high level of engagement within the communities that we were working, which enabled us to put on more activities.

12 sustainability champions trained – Through the sustainability champions training programme we recruited and trained 8 ambassadors. Although this is lower than the specified target the programme was successful in getting two of the participants’ action plans, which they developed as part of the training, funded. The action plans covered the steps and resources needed to develop physically improvements to the champions estate to improve its sustainability, out of the two that went on to receive funding through local authority improvements grants one was to replant and adapt the estates planters to be fed by rain water and the second was to regenerate a overgrown food growing garden.

Community engagement highlights Groundwork London delivered a comprehensive range of community engagement activities throughout the project. These are listed in full in appendix 5. Some highlights of particularly successful or significant activities are set out below: Noticeboards – Before the project was introduced to residents through events, noticeboards were installed on site to announce their estate as one of the three estates and to provide residents with some initial background to the project. Following completion of the capital works, interpretation boards describing the interventions and their functions were installed on site; these boards will provide context

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to the interventions to new residents and help further spread awareness around retrofitting climate change adaptation measures.

Tenants and Residents Associations Meetings and Annual General Meetings – The communities at Queen Caroline and Cheeseman’s Terrace are represented by Tenants and Resident Associations (TRAs). The monthly meetings of both TRAs provided good opportunities to regularly feedback and update on progress; the updates given at TRA meetings could then be included in wider TRA communications such as newsletters and coffee mornings. More in depth updates were also delivered at the TRAs’ annual general meetings (AGM); these meetings are larger than regular TRA meetings and a wider section of the local community are invited to them. Over the course of the project Groundwork London staff attended 3 AGMs and 41 TRA meetings.

Sustainability Champions – The sustainability champions training was attended by eight residents.

Sessions covered sustainability, ecology and the natural environment, green infrastructure, sustainable communities, climate change adaptation and action planning to implement their sustainability plans.

Evaluation of the training sessions showed it was successful in meeting its aims of increasing understanding of the local environment,

the

impact

of

climate

change

and

green

infrastructure, as well as increasing participants’ confidence, skills, community capacity and agency in addressing these issues. When asked the question “how much do you feel you know about climate change science and the human impact on the environment?” participants’ average scoring increased after the sessions from 3.0 to 4.0. Overall the average score for all questions asked as part of the evaluation scores rose from 2.9 before the training to 4.0 after the training. A copy of the questionnaire can be found in Appendix 4.

As a result of the action plans that the attendees developed, two

Figure 2: Tanisha building a bird box at a sustainability champions training session

participants have successfully applied for funding to develop and implement their ideas.

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LIFE12 ENV/UK/001133 Events – Events were held throughout the project.

The programme of events held enabled us to access a wider audience of estate residents who would not attend more formal resident meetings. The events themselves focused on launching the project to the wider community, consulting on designs, engaging residents in the Social Return on Investment (SROI) process as part of the evaluation of the project, and celebrating the completion of the capital works. Figure 3: Groundwork landscape architect Marion Phillips in Twelve events were held in total across the three discussion with Queen Caroline residents estates.

Community mapping exercises were undertaken at each of the project launch events. These exercises were the first step in residents’ input into the designs, with them highlighting areas of water pooling, overheating and underused green space on the estates. This information, along with a technical assessment of each estate, was then used to develop concept designs that were consulted on at later events.

Door-knocking was also undertaken during each event and during evenings afterwards to increase participation and ensure as many residents as possible were consulted and informed of the project.

Project Film – Residents were also involved with the project film, providing interviews and being part of cut away scenes of the spaces in use. In total 5 residents were featured in the film with 1 providing a to camera interview talking about their experience, how they feel about their estate since the project completed, and emphasising the positive impacts for both the environment and local community.

Energy Efficiency Home Visits – The energy efficiency home visits provided residents with energy saving advice, simple water and energy saving measures and energy switching advice in the home. A total of 85 visits were conducted across the three estates. As a result of the home visits, residents:

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Saved £1,590.90 a year on their energy bills through the use of energy saving measures



Prevented 6,537 kg CO2 being emitted a year



Avoided 605,916 litres of water being wasted a year



Saved £2,742 per year through switching their energy provider

Some of the feedback we received from residents is below:

"I am giving you 100%. I hope that everyone has the patience to sit and listen to what has to be said. I particularly like the moisture absorber - it is very helpful."

“You informed a lot of what I didn't know. You have given me stuff that I didn't know existed.”

“Absolutely 110% satisfied. Very worthwhile exercise.”

The programme was a very successful way of engaging with residents. Residents gave the home visits a 99% satisfaction rating; being in residents’ homes also gave us an opportunity to discuss other project activity with them.

Community

Adaptation

Plans

–

Through the community adaptation plans each estate identified assets that the community values, threats to those assets and ways to work together as a community to mitigate those threats. We captured resident input

into

these

plans

through

meetings, comments cards and a photography competition. Residents of Queen Caroline Estate highlighted the need to get more residents Figure 4: One of the entries to the Queen Caroline photography competition involved in local democracy such as TRA meetings, council forums and estate AGMs to both protect the capital improvements and build on them in the future. Greater participation in estate management would also help foster a sense of community which the TRA highlighted as being important. The TRA at 9|P a g e

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Cheeseman’s also highlighted the need for them to develop more community participation on the estate as a way of mitigating some of the threats of climate change the segregated nature of Cheeseman’s Terrace has contributed negatively to this but is actively being addressed by the TRA. Overall 39 residents were engaged in the community adaptation plans and all three adaptation plans have been endorsed by their respective estate residents and the local authority.

Food Growing Clubs – Each of the three estates had food growing sessions delivered over the course of the project to develop resident knowledge of food growing and how a changing climate would affect this. Across the three estates the food growing clubs had 15 long term attendees with 5 other attendees attending session as a one off or for Figure 5: Members of the Cheeseman's Terrace gardening club only a short period. The food growing clubs

planting up a balcony

were well received and provided another platform for us to update local residents on progress with the project.

Two of the food growing clubs have continued to run sessions to manage their growing facilities; the facilities at Richard Knight House are currently being maintained by one resident.

Themes from the community engagement Urbanites’ awareness of the environment around them At the beginning of the project residents were clearly aware of the local environment on their estate and key issues associated with this. They were able to accurately describe areas of pooling or flooding and some have also pointed out areas where there was very minimal planting or large amounts of weeds. They also knew how their homes and the estates’ open spaces change throughout the different seasons, for example the ambient temperature and where there is shade or not.

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LIFE12 ENV/UK/001133 However, across all 3 estates, residents did not tend to think that the environment is changing or likely to change in the future. Furthermore, residents also did not tend to have concerns about climate change’s local consequences or the unequal distribution of these consequences according to personal or social circumstances. One exception to this had been discussions on flooding at Cyril Thatcher, Richard Knight and Eric MacDonald Houses, where residents drew a clear link between the difficulties currently experienced by some residents with physical disabilities entering the building when the path is flooded and their even greater difficulties if this was to get worse.

By the end of the programme we made some head way into addressing residents’ awareness of climate change and the consequence to their lives and the area they live in. When asked, 90% of residents reported an increased understand of climate change and anecdotal evidence collected through discussions with residents has revealed that they feel they experience less water pooling and other related issues. We were able to achieve this by approaching climate change from a hyper-local angle, connecting issues of flooding, drains overflowing and flats overheating to help people relate to climate change more than when we initially started discussing it on a global scale.

Open spaces as estate infrastructure Of the residents consulted across all three estates during door-knocking, a large majority, 62%, stated that they rarely or very rarely used the estate’s open spaces. This was reflected at estate level with very little difference between the three estates in terms of active use of their green spaces. Where the green spaces were seen as useful, it had almost always been for their ability to provide social opportunities to residents.

A priority for some residents at each estate has been to make sure that young people on the estate continue to be able to play in specific green areas or that investment is put into more play opportunities for them. Food-growing and gardening activities are mentioned in an analogous way for adults on each estate.

The use of green spaces to improve the effectiveness of the estate’s drainage, the ability of buildings to cope with hotter, drier summers and other elements of its infrastructure was a very new concept to many residents.

By the end of the project 42% of residents reported that their use of the green spaces had increased, 48% reported an increased sense of belonging and 67% reported increased pride in the area they live in.

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“It’s somewhere we want to stop and chat.

So it’s really made a difference to our lives”. Emma Griffiths, Queen Caroline resident.

"It's so beautiful every time I come outside I could cry”. Shirley Culpit, Chair, Queen Caroline TRA. “This project has made a lot of improvements to the look of the estate, as well as helping to bring our community together”.

Ros O’Connell, Treasurer, Queen Caroline TRA. "The garden is much approved of by all of the residents, and we have seen a reduction in vandalism since it was built. As I am mostly at home due to my husband’s dementia, having a garden gives me huge pleasure".

- Lyn Hally, Richard Knight House Resident Responsibility for the estate The relationship between residents, the TRA, the Local Authority and other organisations working in the estates is complicated, particularly with regard to responsibility for the estates’ upkeep and improvements.

Cheeseman’s Terrace and Maystar Estate residents, in particular, perceived that an increasing number of absentee leaseholders and short term renters has resulted in a loss of community and personal investment in the estate. However, more general concerns were also voiced during consultation about leaseholders and tenants alike regarding littering and respect for communal areas.

Initial conversations with residents were somewhat dominated by a sense that residents did not feel able or willing to personally make changes or improvements to their estate. At Cheeseman’s Terrace and Maystar Estate this has been particularly marked.

Through the project we have managed to combat these attitudes through engaging residents in the design process, giving them the ability to make small scale improvements through the gardening clubs and including residents in maintenance meetings and handovers with the local authorities and their subcontractors. Residents at Chessman’s Terrace have even taken on the maintenance of 4 flower beds across the estate from the local authority as a result of the efforts of the estate’s gardening club.

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LIFE12 ENV/UK/001133 The importance of the housing estate’s design The residents consulted have shown interest in the design of the estate and the way that impacts on its community. The design of each housing estate significantly affects the social networks within it, for instance although Cheeseman’s Terrace and Maystar has up to this point been treated as a single estate both by the Local Authority and the project, residents cannot easily move between each third of the estate defined by Orchard Square, Shuter’s Square and Vine Square and have often talked about these areas as separate to their own home.

Through the project at Chessman’s Terrace there now operates an estate wide gardening club that works to improve outside spaces for all residents, two funding bids have been successfully submitted to regenerate an old playground and discussions with the local authority have been held to discuss changing the access arrangement to the estate’s three green squares so that all residents can access every green space on the estate.

Lessons learnt Through the project several key lessons have been learnt that Groundwork London will carry forward into other community and landscape projects of this nature. 

TRA meetings are a cost effective way of engaging a community but can alienate members of the community that don’t attend them.



Connecting hyper-local issues of flooding, drains overflowing and flats overheating helps people relate to climate change more than discussing it on a global scale.



An activity that includes home visits allows you access to hard to reach residents and provides another avenue to disseminate information.



Having a diverse offer of engagement activities allows residents to interact with the project on their terms, creating a mutually beneficial relationship.



Engaging residents in the SROI process is difficult at events; greater success was had through TRA meetings and door to door engagement.

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Consultation helps organisations to understand the sometimes complex relationships communities have with their green spaces and the other stakeholders involved.



Efforts to broaden residents’ understanding of the functionality of their green spaces can lead to widespread support for green infrastructure retrofit projects.



Engaging residents in the design process, and enabling them to make small-scale improvements, has helped to foster a sense of responsibility and ownership of the estates’ green spaces to a point where residents feel an increased capacity to influence local decision making.

Residents continue to support the ongoing success of the project through the continuation of gardening clubs, supporting the maintenance of interventions, documenting their estate through photography and developing further ideas on how they can redevelop the remaining open spaces of their estate. We hope to use the relationships we’ve built with these three communities to develop further projects to trial different ways of working and to implement further sustainable solutions to environmental problems.

We have also captured approaches towards, and results from, community engagement in an Implementation Guide, which also offers advice to other housing providers on delivering similar initiatives, including the community engagement aspects of such projects. The Guide is available on the project website www.urbanclimateproofing.london.

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Appendices Appendix 1 - Promotional material for first community events

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Appendix 2 – Consultation boards used for events

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Appendix 3 – Door knocking

survey Appendix 4 – Sustainability champions evaluation form 17 | P a g e

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Appendix 5 – List of community engagement activities Activity

Date

Attendees

Meetings with community groups/TRAs

2x meetings a month from March 2014 – September 2016 March 2014 March – August 2014

7 per each meeting

3x Project launch events 9x Door knocking surveys 3x Consultation events 85x Green doctor home visits Sustainability champions training (6 sessions) 56x Food growing clubs 3x Maintenance handovers 3x Celebration events

May – August 2014 May – April 2015 June – July 2015 August 2015 - March 2016 April 2016 July 2015 July 2016 September 2016

15 approx. per event 48 residents completed surveys 20 approx. per event 85 resident homes visited 8 per each session 6 per session 3 per each handover 20 approx. per event

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