Principles met

  • We will develop systems that enable citizens to be equal partners in designing and commissioning public services and in determining the use of public resources.
  • We will explore ways for councils to act as a platform for helping the community to contribute to local outcomes, and to re-think the role of councillors as community connectors, brokers and leaders.
  • We will capture and ‘expand’ the experience and learning from individual projects and approaches in order to encourage broader application of co-operative principles within individual member Councils and across the Network.

The disruption and change in our day-to-day lives, over the last few years, has created an opportunity for communities to rethink and reimagine how we engage with the public realm. As people became better acquainted with their local parks and canal paths, and streets were transformed for outdoor dining and activity, we began to see the benefits of doing things differently. At the same time, the inequalities that have been so starkly illuminated by the pandemic, are yet again reinforced in the inequitable access to good quality outdoor and greenspace across our cities.

In Birmingham, where over 40% of the population live in the most deprived households nationally, access to greenspace is amongst the lowest per person in the UK. Over the last year TAWS have been working with Birmingham City Council and the Birmingham Growing Network to redress this inequality and improve access to – and ownership of – greenspace within our most deprived communities.

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