Perspectives on regeneration: Lynn Morris

Lynn Morris, development manager at Groundwork, was interviewed in June 2007. This summary has been approved for publication.

How did you get involved with Regenerate?

I met Regenerate [in the] early part of last year with the economic partnership when it was first mooted that they intended to come into Wigan. Then they got the NRF money and we had a meeting, it must have been about 12-15 people, from different agencies and partners in Wigan, where Stephen from Regenerate explained what the project was all about.

I could see some connections with what we do, [because] it’s all the things that Groundwork are known for. I think at that stage there was quite a bit of, resistance is the wrong word, but people thinking we already do this. But we thought, well, it’s a project that might help us do it better, or do it differently, so it’s worth considering. So I suggested to Stephen that they start off doing something with us so it gave people something more concrete to see on the ground.

Progress so far

Since then we’ve had a training day here. About ten people went through the initial couple of days’ training with Regenerate. Some people did it because it will be part of their job and they will continue with whatever training comes afterwards. Other people did it to see what it was all about and be aware of it. We’ve got two people definitely who will go ahead with it and we’re just waiting to set that in motion.

The other aspect is whether we could use it as a product for Groundwork, that we could use regionally, nationally - that’s at the very early stages at the moment.

What’s happened in terms of using that training? Well it was only a few weeks ago, it’s not that long ago. It’s very difficult because I like the idea of it and I think had Wigan got the LEGI bid and been able to appoint or fund animators in different areas it would have been quite straightforward, but we don’t have the luxury of someone we can dedicate to that role without bidding for it.

In the meantime I’d done a bid which wasn’t successful unfortunately, [which] would have revenue funded a post to be an animator. If we could have just got that started off we could have dedicated a person, had a pilot there, and really made it happen.

We’ve got two Community Pride projects, which are really based in the community, there’s one in Worsley Mesnes which has been going the longest which is quite well established in the community, quite well thought of, and it was the kind of project where that philosophy of consultation would have worked quite well. So while we can’t fund somebody specifically to do that we can incorporate the ideas into what they already do. So that’s what we’re waiting to start up at the moment. There’ll be two projects – one’s in Skelmersdale.

Feedback from training

[It’s been] quite mixed really. Obviously for the majority it’s the first time they’ve been exposed to Regenerate anyway. It was quite funny because the first day everybody came away and thought, ‘I have no idea what this is all about’. And then the second day they pulled it together a bit more.

I think we would benefit from it which is why we’ve continued with it. I’ve almost wanted us to be the ones who tested it out and proved it, because it’s not that far removed from what we already do, so it would be quite easy to incorporate it. The difficulty is you’re always attaching something onto somebody’s job – it’s capacity, isn’t it, it’s just having time and resources to do it. But I think certainly it’s well worth a try.

Will staff be convinced of its value?

They don’t dispute that it’s a good idea, that the whole concept of it theoretically makes a lot of sense, they can understand that, but there is no evidence of it happening before. So it’s really hard to say to somebody, look, that’s what’s happened there. It’s just this intangible quality.

Putting the training into effect

Community Pride is a model we want to spread across the area because we’ve just merged trusts so we’ve got quite a wide area that goes out to Morecambe – Community Pride is a product really that we believe works well for Groundwork and is a really good community based idea, gets people involved really quickly. So you could see where this method of consultation would work, especially if it was a new project. We’re trying to incorporate it into one old, one new, just to see how it works. It’s probably easier in a new one where you can do it straight from day one, and obviously that would be easier.

Summer school plans

Because it’s linked to social enterprise, and because hopefully at the end of it we could help people start small businesses, and get some capital back into areas that are really quite run-down, there seems to me to be something tangible at the end of it if that can happen, and as far as I’m aware that’s not happened to date with any consultation. It’s always been, let’s get all this information from you, but we’ll not actually do much about it at the end of it. And it just felt that this [the summer school] was a way you could probably do something about it.

Members of staff and the line manager have met with Stephen and Julia, and they’ve all agreed to go ahead with this, so it’s just a matter of the mechanics of starting it off.

We did talk about Wigan’s identity and the Northern Soul element, and also we talked about all the Youth Work programmes that we run, using one and doing this summer school with them, so there’s something tangible again going on that people can see.

The Northern Soul idea is really good, because obviously that’s Wigan’s heritage, and it ties in very nicely because the Wigan Pier Quarter development’s going ahead at the moment, and you could see where the whole thing could fit in, but that’s really early stages. We’ve actually had one discussion about this a couple of weeks ago.

What’s working well?

[We’re] hoping to get Groundwork involved with the idea of what’s going on because I think it’s quite good. The idea of the summer school and doing something, again because it’s got an outcome that is potentially lucrative and even quite exciting for people, it will be interesting to see how it works.

What we didn’t want to do was force it upon people. We wanted people to be able to say yes I’d like to do that, I think this sounds all right, I feel comfortable with it and happy to do it that way, and we’ve got that consensus with the two staff who are going to take it on board.

Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate over the next four to six months

I would hope by then that certainly the Community Pride project would have incorporated Regenerate’s ideas, certainly the one in Skelmersdale – it’s strange, that, because it’s slightly outside the Wigan area, it’s quite new, so it’s a bit hard to know what I expect from that yet, or what we can do with it.

I suppose if we do it right both ourselves and Regenerate will get the outcomes that we want out of those projects, and if it works well and social enterprise is the end result of it then that would be a bonus as far as we’re concerned.