Author Archives: Hilary
Managing Change And Programmes: Beginning A New Adventure
Social policy implementation ‘on the ground’ is challenging – though it may also be exciting and certainly well worthwhile. We can all learn from comparing our expectations with the reality which follows……
I start a new assignment today. It involves working with a public service multi-disciplinary team in a socio-economically ‘challenged’ environment, as they take forward a programme of services to meet local need. And, whilst they do this, the team have been told they must adapt and develop the nature of the programme itself so that, in accordance with new government policy, it becomes a more integrated and seamless provision.
That’s the way with nationally led programmes these days; and probably all for the better. But it does give rise to questions:
* How much development against how much change?
* How much adaptation of actual practice against just presentational adjustment to ensure that the service is used more effectively?
* How well equipped and resourced (professionally and materially) are those who must take forward the change?
* And…. will the intended recipients of the new, developed service find it helpful? How will we know if we’re providing the best we can?
I’m really looking forward to joining the team. They’re experienced and committed and will I know do everything they can to help me settle in and make progress. Agreeing what ‘making progress’ really means will I hope be an adventure in which we can all move forward together.
I shall in all probabality return on this website to specific policy issues at some point in the future, but for now I will make a few very cautious predictions about how I will learn from (and hopefully contribute to) the work in hand……
The first element of joining a team is the mapping – I’ll spend a while finding out in a bit more detail who’s who and what they do. Usually this begins to happen quite naturally in the course of actually finding out where things (the various venues? a desk? a phone?) are located. The practicals seem to take one also to the people.
Then there’s the analysis phase; are we all agreed that we have what we need? Who or what can plug the gaps – and to what extent? I know the team manager has already sorted the programme as it stands in considerable detail, but it will be interesting to swap notes with him and our colleagues about outstanding requirements for the anticipated changes ahead.
I’d guess the next stage after this will be consulting with others outside the immediate team; local authority decision-makers, other service providers, and of course with those who will be at the receiving end of the service. This is all so inter-related that it’s very difficult to predict how it will end up. But the main thing is to be clear about agreed objectives. Problems can usually be overcome if people know and are comfortable with what they’re aiming at.
And finally there’s implementation. At the moment details of what will be required of us all are still very outline; hopefully the government will give us rather more specific information and guidelines very shortly. It’s difficult for colleagues when they aren’t sure what’s expected, so that needs to be sorted a.s.a.p. (I’m never really certain those at the very top appreciate how difficult uncertainty can be for workers at the delivery face. Challenge is fine; destabilisation and all that follows from it may not be, from anyone’s persepctive.)
So there we go. A few predictions and comments for starters. I will of course steer quite clear of talking about details – that’s just for us as a team – but I’ll maybe return some time to say whether my expectations of process were on the ball….. Change is the order of the day, but it’s a relatively uncharted course in the practical sense for many who have to adapt to, and indeed deliver, it.
One of the best ways to learn is to test reality and the art of the possible against the expectational theory.
But whatever the shape of what we eventually come up with, I know that everyone on the project I’m joining for a while wants the best; and that’s a very good start.
Liverpool 2007: 800 And Enterprising
This proposal, on the theme of Liverpool 2007: Enterprise City of the Future, was first circulated publicly (and very widely) in December 2001, It concerns the need for Liverpool to be forward-looking and engaging as the city progresses through the key years towards 2007 and 2008.
We can – and do! – all hope that Liverpool will become European Capital of Culture in 2008; we can with justification expect that the Manchester-led Commonwealth games in 2002 will benefit everyone in the North West; but of one thing we can be absolutely certain – that in 2007 the City of Liverpool will celebrate its 800th anniversary. No crystal-gazing required there.
So what are we all doing about this? Perhaps not too much yet; but we need to get going.
The lessons of the Millennium are there for all to see: aim high, plan early, and stick at it. In Liverpool even such relatively modest projects as the Hope Street Millennium Festival were first mooted some four or five years before they actually took place.
And another lesson which experience offers, unsurprisingly, is that clear objectives and step-by-step planning lead to success.
Objectives first: What can we celebrate especially in Liverpool’s 800th year? I’d suggest four ‘strands’ to start with: Liverpool’s rich history of international and inter-continental links; its undisputed inventiveness (from George Stephenson onwards); its tradition of grand architecture, landscaping and culture; and its diversity and creativeness, in bad times and good.
Sounds familiar? Perhaps you’re thinking of the admirable themes behind Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture bid. But that, we all hope, will happen the year after the Big Birthday; and plans for it have to be developed in the knowledge that, despite the strengths of Liverpool’s bid, this wonderful European accolade could in the end go to anywhere in the UK.
2007 by contrast is definitely Liverpool’s for the taking. One of the UK’s premier cities – ours – already has 2007 in the bag; so now let’s make sure everyone knows about it.
Back then to objectives. Surely a theme which arises from all the ‘strands’ mentioned is ENTERPRISE? Liverpudlians, through thick and thin, are inventive. They innovate, they find ways round; they are, in short, entrepreneurial. And more and more, they are becoming entrepreneurial in the ways their businesses are developing – big businesses or small, social or straight commercial, imagination and innovation abound.
So I’d say, let’s make 2007 the year to promote LIVERPOOL: ENTERPRISE CITY OF THE FUTURE. Let’s celebrate the past and present, achievements by our diverse communities of every sort, but let’s also determinedly set our sights on the future and what we must make it hold for ourselves and generations to come.
Which takes us back to the need for a step-by-step approach. We must see 2007 as ‘lift-off’ for our futures, not an end point, and we must build up to it carefully, perhaps via annual milestones.
The year 2002 sees not only the NW Commonwealth games, but the Queen’s Golden Jubilee – many will remember the 17,000 children who celebrated with music and drama when Her Majesty visited Hope Street in 1977; perhaps we can celebrate our communities in this way again next year. Then, 2004 is the centenary of Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral. And so we could continue. Already, I know many will be thinking, ‘Yes, my organisation has something big to celebrate in the years 2002-2007’.
And all these anniversaries have arisen because people in this amazing city of ours Did Something Special. They built a cathedral (or two); they formed a football club (or two); they founded a university (or two or three); they founded many businesses; they developed rich and diverse communities; they built theatres and organised festivals; they achieved things at the very frontiers of science and knowledge.
By all means let’s work hard, very hard, to make Liverpool European Capital of Culture in 2008; but let’s do it in the context of what we already know without a shadow of a doubt will be ours in 2007. And let’s take this wonderful opportunity to celebrate and show-case all that is most exciting and entrepreneurial in our very own Pool of Life.
Here’s a unique opportunity for lift-off, for communities and businesses to come together to make Liverpool’s future. Perhaps, in fact, this is an opportunity which can only be led from the front, by Liverpool’s entrepreneurs of all sorts, to make a better future for everyone. Informal discussions suggest that people from the arts, business, communities, education and science are all incredibly keen to move our city on. Who, I wonder, will join in taking the first steps forward to 2007, to make Liverpool Eight Hundred and vibrantly Enterprising?
And then we really would have something extra which is Liverpool’s alone to add to our European Capital of Culture celebrations in 2008.
This proposal, written by Hilary Burrage, was first circulated on 6 December 2001.
Is Art Good For Your Health?
Why is commissioned art in hospitals such a problem for some? The evidence suggests that, just as much as in other public and work places, art can help people to be comfortable and positive.
There they are, the arbiters of ‘value’, getting very upset about money which has been spent in one or two hospitals on ‘art’. It’s a waste, they declare. We could be buying more drugs or equipment, but we’re squandering the readies on something that you just…. look at!
Well, perhaps these joyless folk haven’t grasped the concept of added value. Perhaps the evidence, from a variety of sources, that being happy (or at least, happier than before) helps you to get better has passed them by. If you can see green vistas, or pleasant pictures and images, you will relax more easily, and you may even be able to leave hospital a day or so earlier than if you’re stuck in a grey and souless place.
There are not that many ways in which service providers can actually save on overall budget and, at the same time, increase effectiveness and make people happier – but this is indeed one of them!
No-one seems to be saying that art is going to replace medical treatments. Proper consideration of clinical diagnosis and treatment must always be absolutely paramount. Medicine will however always be an art as well as a science.
If people in hospital have pleasant things to see and think about, if they can look at artefacts which help them to feel they are still connected with their wider comminuties and interests, if there are nice things to talk about with fellow patients, that makes a difference.
But ‘nice things to look at’ don’t just appear; they have to be created. I remember Adrian Henri, who painted murals for the operating theatre suite at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, recounting how much research he was obliged to do before he so much as lifted a brush. He had to ensure his images gave no unwitting offence or alarm to patients from many different faiths and cultures as they entered a place none of volunters to visit.
Perhaps those who choose to take such a high-handed and cold view of what’s appropriate for people in hospitals should remember that the evidence also points compellingly to the idea that pleasant workplaces are good… and that applies whether you work in a commercial office or a medical context. We all benefit from environments which make us comfortable and positive. And the evidence is there to show this benefit can be measured in outcomes even accountants would acknowledge.
Within sensible reason, let’s agree that there’s always a place, when were thinking about real people, for soul as well as science. Who knows when any of us might be in hospital and glad of a little visual cheer?
The 5+ Cs of Chairing
Control and Command, or Communicate, Consult and Collaborate? There are other ‘Cs of Chairing’ too, but what do all these terms tell us about how modern organisations and people see the world?
It used to be quite easy. If you were Chair(man – most of them were male) of a meeting or organisation, you sat there and issued directions and edicts as prescribed.
That role of course still exists, especially in legal some other formal contexts. But these days there tends to be a lot more to it than that.
People in general are not so willing to go along with being told what to do. They question things. As a Chair you have to establish your authority in more ways than simply being appointed or elected: you have to show others that you know what you’re doing, and why.
This applies particularly in political and community contexts. Chairs may well need to use a Command and Control style in the military or a legal situation, but they will need to show leadership of another kind if they want to take things forward successfully in situations where those involved are not obliged to be there.
Communicate, Consult and Collaborate may well be a more effective method than Command and Control to make progress, when individuals in a group can opt out at least as easily as they opt in.
There are of course snags in this newer approach: how can you be sure to get things done? But on the whole Command and Control probably in reality also produced only a fraction of the effect that ideally orders might have – if people want to be difficult, they will always find ways to be so.
I suspect nonetheless that the issue of what people actually expect from a Chair has become more critical in relatively recent times, having particular impact for, say, voluntary organisations or political parties. ‘The troops’ still need, from the organisation’s perspective, to be put in place at strategic points in time, and they need to be marshalled in sufficient numbers to have impact. In order to achieve this, should the Contemporary Chair issue Orders, or would it be better to Coax and Cajole?
Resolution of this dilemma can present a challenge, unless sufficient preparatory work has been done. A Chair (whether of a small voluntary group or of a massive national organisation) who understands that individual members need consistently to be valued and informed, is more likely when the crunch comes to be effective than one who has forgotten these fundamentals.
There’s a whole lot of difference between Telling someone and Engaging them; but folk will generally accept the the former if the latter happened first. (Of course there are also exceptional issues around every individual’s responsibility for their own actions, regardless of if and when they receive encouragement – voting, for instance, ‘should’ be a civic duty, not an action predicated on being ‘asked’ to vote.)
A rule of thumb for Contemporary Chairs could be: Lead from the front, but Listen at the back. Communicate before you Command.
I don’t think people have abandoned the idea of organisational leadership. Sometimes, especially when the stakes are high, they positively demand it. But they also expect those who direct them to acknowledge, very actively, that the prerogative of Command has to be given, accorded by Collective Consent, and not imposed.
Facilitation & Leadership
Leaders offer direction; Facilitors generally should not. But how fluid is this distinction, and to what effect?
Do Leaders emerge or are they made? Are some Facilitators also Leaders? Or is the role of a Faciltator to bring about change through the agency of others – perhaps those who already have the mantle of Leadership, or perhaps others who will come to the fore via the process being facilitated?
The answer is probably that both these models apply in different circumstances.
A professional Facilitator (whether paid or not) is someone whose task is to bring forward responses from a group which has already asked for this to happen, maybe via an already established Leader.
On the other hand an informal Facilitator (usually a volunteer) may be someone who wants to get a group or interest established as an entity in itself. Such a person may well emerge from that group as a Leader.
And why are these distinctions important?
Again, the answers vary. Sometimes for instance informal facilitation is a route to significant developments which can be harnessed by, say, regeneration or other ‘official’ bodies to bring forward spokespeople for given interests. Conversely, on occasion it has been known for formal Facilitators to take upon themselves a leadership role acceptable by those who engaged them, but perhaps not by those whom they are facilitating.
The more the variables are considered, the more likely it is that the role claimed, Facilitator or Leader?, is that which is in fact being enacted.
Why Change Management can’t be perfect (as if you didn’t know)
Different communities and groups frequently have different understandings of why ‘change’ occurs and how ‘progress’ is achieved. Leadership and initiatives in such circumstances can be very challenging. Nobody’s interested in Policy Pilots. They want Results.
It’s always puzzled me, and the more I think about it, the more so…..
We all know that
(a) we live in times of rapid change,
(b) the variables in the changes are uncountable, and
(c) to whatever extent, change has to be eternally managed.
In other words, we are solidly aware that the whole process is unpredictable and subject to serendipity at every stage of the game. Plus, there’s never an end. Change is a dialectic as compelling as Time itself.
Why is ‘change’ a worry?
So why do so many people spend so much time criticising ‘Change’, and apparently so little time in general public discourse considering ‘Since Something Is Going To Happen Anyway, What Shall We All Do To Make It A Bit Better?’
Clearly, the myriad of forces which impel change as such also apply to the motivators and causal factors behind any individual’s reaction to that change. There are psychological ones, socio-political ones, geo-economic ones… The list could go on.
There is also however a general cultural factor which probably applies diffierently at different times and in different places, whether we are thinking about huge historical eras or micro-contexts like single workplaces.
Here are some possible scenarios to which one might be able to apply specific examples.. just fill in with your own!
The cultural backdrop
In some cultural understandings – and again these may be micro as well as macro – there is a sense simply that Things Happen. This probably includes amongst other ‘Things’ people who are outside the group, who are perceived with whatever degree of acceptance or resistance to be the agents of the change…. No good communicating with them, because ‘We’ won’t make any impact, so just wait and see, and then judge the outcome.
Then there are other cultural understandings which may suggest that, whilst ‘We’ are aware of what’s going on, the option of complaint later is preferable to taking early responsibility for what arises. The Comfort Zone is visible, but is safer than expending the time and energy which a pro-active response would require.
And finally there are cultural understandings which just fail to appreciate the fluid nature of the process of developing ideas. In this case, people do know how to interrogate proposals and they may well have strong views, but they see every decision and outcome as cast in stone.
This last is a particularly difficult position to address, but one familiar to many of us who attempt to initiate Managed Change.
Vague ideas which leave things hanging…
You perhaps go into a situation with a remit to support constructive developments, and you ask those concerned what they think. Their response is, ‘Well, what do you want?’……
But you know that, come the time when plans crystallise into actions, there will be plenty of advice on What You Should Have Done.
The dialectic of such development is challenging. Not everyone sees any difference between Change and ‘Consensual Progress’; nor does everyone want to. If you as an initiator emphasise the plasticity of outcomes, you are accused of not knowing your stuff; but if you offer directional leadership (is there any other sort?) you are of course autocratic.
It’s all a matter of perspective, as any politician or organisational head attempting to pilot his or her favourite policy will tell you.
Empowerment
Empowering people and communities to believe that things can usually change consensually for the better – that only very rarely is there no space for adjustment – is one of the most difficult aspects of community leadership, whatever the ‘community’.
Perhaps one of the first steps in this direction is the acknowledgement that we all, You, Me, Them, make mistakes; and that it IS possible to learn from and act on these, positively.
Angry Young Men in Bradford, Toxteth, Oldham, Salford, Lozells…
In every era of history young men have demonstrated hotheaded and sometimes unacceptable behaviour. Recent violence in our inner cities is nonetheless hugely worrying, especially in contemporary contexts of instant communications and global politics. Intervention to change this behaviour must come from many different angles. One way is collaboration between youth service and school professionals to help alientated and challenged young people develop skills to help themselves.
Groups of young men (and just occasionally now young women) who rove the streets perhaps not averse to a fight, or perhaps even a riot, are nothing new. In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare wrote about the mediaeval tragedy of the Montagues and Capulets; and Mods and Rockers in the nineteen fifties were the basis of Graham Green’s novel Brighton Rock.
But that this happened in the past doesn’t in any way mean that it’s not of deep concern now. Indeed, with global communication many might argue that, when hotheaded youth meets fundamental conviction, the problem for us all is if anything more serious than before.
The issue in a generally tolerant society is obviously very testing. How can we tell young people meaningfully that we value them, and everyone else, as individuals, whilst also making it crystal clear that we do not, and cannot in any circumstance, tolerate the belief of a minority that violence is sometimes justifiable?
Starting early
The answer lies in part with how we provide for young people and children, in schools, youth groups, in their communities (howsoever defined – which can be a big question…). And we have to start early.
Quite recently I was the evaluator in a project which involved close collaboration between the youth service and two schools in a hugely disadvantaged part of a northern city.
Multiple challenges
The object of this pilot collaboration was to see how intervention by the youth service could support children in secondary education who faced multiple challenges. Some of them were
very low achievers, some had personal problems, some were asylum seekers (who often didn’t speak much English). The majority were boys.
What became very clear to us all, teachers, youth workers and others, was that these children needed to develop confidence and communication skills, and that was best done in very small groups using youth work techniques rather than the conventional classroom approach. However kind and caring the teachers, in their usual classes the children felt swamped and unable to contribute – with the inevitable consequences.
Managing anger in testing circumstances
What was also very clear was that for some children from ethnic minority communities racism was a daily experience; and one they often couldn’t cope with. Anger management for all the children, whatever their community background or colour of skin, was also therefore an essential element in their skills development.
The aim was to help all the children walk away from trouble, full stop.
Continuity is the key
On the whole, this approach was actually beginning to work by the time the pilot project came to an end. The lessons we as professionals learned from this pilot collaborative project were many, but one of the most striking was, you can’t start too early – and you can’t just cut off because a young person has a birthday.
Schools may be structured to impose enormous transitions at eleven and sixteen; but children sometimes remain children in their perspectives and behaviours in ways which may relate little to their chronological age – especially if they have had a pretty rough time of it to date.
A multi-disciplinary approach
Another lesson we learned was that multiply challenged children do indeed need multiple approaches to their problems – teachers, youth workers, health and social care professionals, all have a part to play; and they have to do this together, understanding what each professional approach has to offer the children.
Nobody is suggesting that youth service-school collaboration will bring an immediate end to very serious current concerns around the behaviours of some young people; but it does seem that investing in more of this work is also investing very positively in our futures.
Peer support
The more extreme and unacceptable beliefs of the small minority of angry young men are best challenged by their peers, as well as just by ‘outsiders’.
If we can somehow give some of these peers the support and skills they need to be able to stand up for good sense and our common humanity, we will have achieved something really worthwhile which offers hope for everyone.
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2012 London Olympics: An Opportunity For Liverpool?
Already, some people in Liverpool believe the 2012 Olympics will be ‘bad’ for Merseyside. Having already won the accolade of 2008 European Capital of Culture, – and bearing in mind also the City’s 800th Anniversary in 2007 – surely we in Liverpool are actually very well placed to benefit greatly from the 2012 Olympics, if we start to plan now? The glass is decidedly half full, not half empty. The next challenge for Liverpool is to recognise this and act on it.
The news on Merseyside today is that a survey shows more local business people think the 2012 Olympics will be bad for the Liverpool area than good for it.
They argue that benefit will probably be directly in relation to proximity to London; and indeed that finance for the Olympics will take any available monies, leaving not much for the rest of us.
This is a particularly puzzling view in Merseyside, where we are about to benefit from our 800th Anniversary in 2007, and then the 2008 European Capital of Culture – events brim-full of business opportunities and visitors, alongside the city’s current enthusiasm for regeneration.
Call me naive, but I see here a chance to build on whatever success we in Liverpool can make of our 2007 / 2008 events. The city’s leaders have consistently said they want the celebrations and developments kicked-started by the 2008 Culture Year (and the city’s 2007 800th Anniversary celebrations) to continue longer term, with a programme which has horizons well beyond those dates.
These forthcoming events are surely the way to make sure we’re on the ball for the Olympics, a position which is unique to Liverpool in the UK . By 2012 we will have put in place all the infrastructure and tourism facilities you could possibly wish for, and we will have learned a lot during our 2007/8 years in the limelight.
It’s up to all of us outside the capital to make sure that our Olympics ‘offer’ for 2012 is up to scratch. I don’t want to ask people now if they are worried about 2012. I’d prefer to ask how, already, they are engaging their imaginations to make 2012 a year when the whole country makes the most of chances to work together to show what we can do.
This is definitely one scenario where the glass is not half empty, but already half full – especially for Liverpool, 2008 European Capital of Culture. Let’s make sure the 2012 opportunity is relished, not rejected.
Planning For Energy Futures With The CBI
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is warning us that posssible energy shortages mean a winter of discontent awaits. This is a matter of concern for everyone. When energy is taken by the banks and business as seriously in terms of analysis as finance, the notion of ‘Futures’ may help us to understand ‘Options’ in a whole new way.
My grasp of ‘Futures’, in the financial sense of the word, is slight; but I gather it’s all to do with large-scale ‘Options’ on investing by banks to produce decent returns later on. So far, so simple.
But isn’t this what we need to think about with energy futures, as well as financial ones? The CBI – an organisation which I would imagine knows a bit about futures and banks – has just said they have serious concerns about energy provision this winter. A long hard snap and we’ll be in for a winter of discontent the likes of which only those of us long in the tooth can recall.
Strangely, the forward thinking which is routinely made for financial futures doesn’t seem to feature when businesses consider energy futures. Some of us would argue, however, that energy is where it’s really all at.
What’s the ‘gold’ of the future?
Hasn’t it been said that the gold of the future is oil? Or maybe these days renewables?
Recent days have seen high-level hints that more nuclear power is on the cards for the UK. Conservationists and eco-people will be horrified by this. Industrial contractors and perhaps some regeneration specialists may see it as a promising way forward.
The real question must surely be, how much thought have we all put into ways of providing energy for the future? And how much have we also thought about the levels of energy we really need, as opposed to the levels we all currently expend?
Conflicting demands
Leaders in different parts of these fields seem to be looking several ways at once.
Businesses want cheap energy in abundant supply (though some of them do of course make efforts to conserve it as well).
The politicians are trying to do two things: encourage us on the one hand to save energy, and on the other to consider forms of energy production which may or may not be sustainable and long-term safe.
And the scientists are telling us that the technologies for energy conservation and production have not all been explored to the same level. We aren’t as yet in a position to evaluate fully the relative effectiveness and risk of all the possible ways forward; but we do know how to produce shorter-term big science solutions.
‘Options’ in energy
Back then to the ‘futures’ idea. We have graduate physicists and others who, it is reported, have too little to do. (An irony, in my experience, is that many good physicists end up working as analysts in banks, not laboratories.) And we have businessess which are worried about energy. Why not put things together and start to take the ‘options’ on energy as seriously as those on finance?
This isn’t just an issue for people who have lots of money to spend, it’s an issue for us all. Without energy, at suitable levels of availability and sustainability, there could be no banks or businesses anyway.
Liverpool’s Newsham Park needs to be conserved
Newsham Park in Liverpool is a Listed Historic Park; yet it has on its perimeter distressingly neglected vintage houses owned, it is said, by the City Council and local Housing Associations. Some concerned locals want the City of Liverpool to take action against itself on this matter. This situation, as some residents understand it, hardly suggests positive re-inforcement of active citizenship in one of the most deprived inner-city localities of the UK.
The very first place we ever lived in Liverpool was, literally, a garret in Fairfield Crescent, off Newsham Park. Still a student, I thought this quite exotic, a place of our own even though the downside was three very steep flights of stairs.
Since my time there many years ago Newsham Park has suffered considerable neglect. The local bank has disappeared, many more people seem to be unemployed, and despite some new retail outlets and the efforts of Kensington New Deal there is widespread visible decay in some parts of the area.
Nonetheless the area is blessed with numbers of residents who are fighting energetically for their patch. Newsham Park is in its design an elegant green space surrounded by large Vistorian houses and wide carriage ways. It was, and still has the potential to be, an urban gem for those who live in the north of the city.
It is shocking therefore to hear that some of the most delapidated housing around Newsham Park is actually owned by the City Council and local Housing Associations. And this, in a Listed Historic Park and within a Conservation Area.
The news is apparently that Newsham Park residents have decided to ask the City to take enforcement action against the owners – sometimes one gathers themselves – of the most neglected properties. Whether this comes about, and what the official response might be, we shall see.
But it does leave us to wonder exactly how one of the most deprived localities of the UK can bring about much needed change for the better, if those who live in and care about it it apparently have to ask their own city to remedy disgraceful neglect on their very doorsteps.
Should it transpire that the City Council, as an example and encouragement to concerned local people, can’t find ways to look after its own property, what hope is there for the rest?
Dreaming Realist 