Local Level - resolving community issues

_We recently designed and ran a consultative process for a public meeting on the sensitive subject of car parking, in a large village on the outskirts of Sheffield.

Our work was based on numerous written remarks in open questions from an online survey, many of which suggested solutions and many of which expressed annoyance at inconsiderate drivers.

The process we devised sought to ensure that the meeting was participative and produced an outcome. Residents apparently were expecting a conventional public meeting in which councillors said something from the front, were shouted at by a few worked-up voices from the rows, and nothing much changed as a consequence.

Instead we ensured that people had the chance to shape their own agenda; had the opportunity to augment and comment, in groups, on every live proposition as it was passed round; using specially printed sheets which included a street map; and they had the chance to vote, at the end, on preferred options to address the parking problem. It was local participative democracy in action.

We have now been asked to carry out further analysis to support the outcome of the meeting.

_'This delightful little object of a book' - Dave Clements reviews Kevin Harris's essay Picnic in the UK Huffington Post.

(See also Alsion Gilchrist's comment on this post).

This essay will be published on 14 November 2011 by Local Level using Bookleteer. 44 pages. Printed in full colour on high quality, FSC-approved sustainably-sourced paper.

Standard edition £10.00.

A limited edition of 50 copies, with a special wrapper designed by Gemma Orton, will be signed by the writer and illustrator, and sold in aid of Crisis for £30.00.

More about the publication here. Online orders can be placed here.

A new essay by Kevin Harris, using the history and social meaning of picnic to explore understandings of 'community' will be published by Local Level in November 2011.

Picnic: order, ambiguity and community, with illustrations by Gemma Orton, is being published using the innovative Bookleteer format. It will be available for sale through this site shortly. For more information please go to our Picnic page.

We have continued to work with street reps in Shipley, Bradford after earlier help to develop the work of a group of street reps in Windhill.

Working closely with members of the Windhill group we have developed a new web site for them. This has now been launched, and has the potential to be extended to cover the activities of street reps across the Shipley area.

With Council services being re-structured, the work of the independent street reps seems more and more important; the new web site will allow sharing of news and information and highlight what has been achieved.