Trafford Elephants Trail

Trafford Council have collaborated with Unlimited Potential and Trafford Community Collective to deliver the Trafford Elephants Trail between September 2025 and March 2027. The project uses the evolving Elephants Trail approach, originally developed in Rochdale, to tackle inequality by influencing and creating systems change through developing community power and community-led innovation.

The Elephants Trail involves Trafford residents who have experienced multiple disadvantages, including homelessness, substance misuse, domestic violence, economic inactivity, mental ill health, and experience of the justice system. The Elephants Trail draws on their valuable expertise developed through their lived experience. The aim is to use the participants’ experience to create systemic change to tackle inequality in Trafford; they will influence and change the places they live, the services they use and the decisions that affect their lives.

Thirteen Trafford residents have joined the Elephants Trail as participants. They meet weekly and receive payment for their time, ensuring their lived experience is valued. The group focuses on a challenging problem, creating their own agenda and deciding which local decision-makers they feel could support them in implementing solutions to system change, service delivery, and policy development. This approach shifts power from decision-makers to those most affected by inequality.

Trafford Council, Trafford’s Health and Wellbeing Board and the Live Well in Trafford Programme have committed to working in partnership with the Elephants Trail and embedding solutions into the system.

Trafford Elephants Trail