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Community Initiatives

Creating neighbourhoods where people choose to live
Community investment is about the wider role organisations like The Guinness Trust now play in the neighbourhoods where we operate.

We cannot afford to focus just on building and managing homes as this will not create successful and vibrant communities.

In keeping with our long experience in regenerating homes, we have developed considerable skills in community investment, taking proper account of what people want from their community. Community development projects are just one element in a much broader mix that makes up the Guinness approach to community investment.

We have set ourselves the goal of being recognised within the next three years not only for our ability to provide community services but also for our ability to manage homes.

We now have 20 community investment staff, including a community investment manager in each of our 12 area offices, and we spend over £1 million a year on community investment initiatives. This is a serious commitment to ensuring the homes and neighbourhoods we create and manage are sustainable for the long term.

Involving residents
Our strategy on community investment is driven by three objectives:

  • To listen and respond to our customers' needs and aspirations
  • To work with our residents and the wider community to improve local housing, community services and social cohesion
  • To give priority to those communities where we can make a difference and to share best practice by publicising our achievements.

It encompasses how we involve residents in our decision making processes, researching our customers needs regularly and acting on the results, working in partnership with residents and local agencies, plus all the aspects of design and improvement that lead to physical environments remaining attractive.

Each community is different, and we have mechanisms in place that allow us to deliver for each community according to its needs. Local solutions within the national strategy framework are vital.

Crucial to this work is our National Resident Involvement Group (NRIG), a group of resident representatives from each of our 12 areas, who together with three staff oversee all of our community investment activity.

Community investment performance is monitored and reviewed annually, with new targets set to keep us moving forward, developing new initiatives and opportunities. We also assess ourselves against the Housing Corporation's nine indicators of sustainability in communities.

Beneath our community investment strategy sit national, regional and area action plans. The plans list the projects residents and staff believe will most help us achieve our objectives. So, in the national plan, for example, the Training Partnership uses residents to train other residents in resident
involvement. We're promoting a fundraising toolkit to help residents and staff raise money for local projects. Exploring opportunities for residents to provide services, such as gardening and catering, and developing a video about getting more involved.

Major regeneration projects
Guinness is a leader in the field of regeneration. Across the country we are involved in major projects, often through housing stock transfers embracing 1,000 homes or more at a time. On every one of these schemes we have a community investment officer as an integral part of the regeneration team from day one, ensuring a holistic approach and strong resident participation in deciding priorities.

At Woolton, in Liverpool, where Guinness is regenerating a 300 home estate for mainly older people, community investment has been centre stage throughout. The residents who run Woolton Neighbourhood Panel played a major role in determining the final shape of the regeneration plans. As well as refurbished homes, the scheme now includes a community centre, restaurant, and housing office. Age Concern have relocated their local resource centre to the scheme and Liverpool Social Services have a domiciliary care team based there. A new high profile public art project is located at the centre of the regenerated estate.