Resident Led Partnership
Big Local North East Hastings
Annual Report May 2017
This is the resident-led partnership’s report for the period May 2016 - April 2017
North East Hastings was awarded Big Local area status, one of 150 similar areas across the
country each with £1million of Lottery money to spend over a 10-year period. The money is
administered for the Lottery by Local Trust.
The job of the resident-led partnership is to draw-up the action plan and budget and manage
the Big Local programme of events and projects in its area.
The partnership met 11 times in the last year and also held an away day in January 2017.
Resident Members of the Partnership - Maureen Gardiner; Jackie Gaunt; Mags Pawson;
Becky Polain; Pat Simnett; Richard Street; Gary Storer; Martin Styring; Alan Turner.
Co-opted members: Cllr Tania Charman, Craig Atkins (Orbit Housing Association); Pranesh
Datta; Emile Tambeh (both Hastings Borough Council); Zoe Jackson; Mike Thompson (both
Amicus Horizon).
The partnership is supported by Jim Boot (Big Local Rep), Jan Papworth (Community
Development Worker) and Lisa Bartholomew (Administrator).
2016/17 represented the final year of our first three year plan.
Activities this year include.
In spring the partnership
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Agreed to investigate the possibility of acquiring premises in the Big Local area in order
to have a high street presence and provide a community hub. An empty property in
London Road was available and could be developed to suit our needs.
Established a small work group to examine the current RLP Terms of Reference with a
view to simplifying some of the processes
Agreed to start work on a Big Local Summer programme for families including a fun day
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In summer we
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Delivered a fun day at Sandown School as part of our summer programme, during
the August Bank Holiday weekend. It was free to enter and enjoyed by nearly 400
adults and children
Funded Oasis community project to run a series of outings for local residents.
Destinations include Brighton Pavilion, Leeford Place, Wingham Wildlife Park and
Legoland. Over 120 people took part.
Started making plans for a Big Local pantomime to be performed in January
Delivered a round of small grants. Small grants are awarded by a sub-group of
RLP members to groups delivering services and activities in the Big Local area. In
this round £6,543 was awarded to nine local groups.
In autumn we
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Engaged a local consortium to carry out a local consultation that would tell us what
was important to local people and what they wanted to see in the new three year
plan
Held a street consultation session in Ore Village
Continued work on the community hub project but ultimately agreed not to proceed
due to the extent of refurbishment needed.
Held another round of Small Grants and awarded £8,756 to nine local projects.
In winter we
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Held a partnership away day for RLP members to discuss progress and future plans
Delivered four performances of our pantomime, CindORElla at Ore Community
Centre with the help of local volunteers. Oh yes we did!
Delivered an Easter Fun event at the Bridge that included an Easter Egg Hunt and
an Easter Bonnet parade,
Developed and agreed a new three year plan, which was submitted to Local Trust
for approval following an assessment visit.
Devised a new vision to accompany our new plan.
Agreed to change our Locally Trusted organisation to Hastings Voluntary Action
Agreed to support a partnership member with funds to study for a fundraising
certificate, thus ensuring that these skills are available to the partnership.
Agreed funding for work around the Power Station site and the Men’s Shed
Former Power Station Site
An exciting development this year has been the Heart of Hastings Community Land Trust
work on the former power station site on Broomgrove Road. The aim here is to acquire the
land from Sea Change (a regeneration company) and carry out large scale regeneration,
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Chair’s Report 2017
led and delivered by local people. Big Local has supported the early work for this project in
the form of two grants totalling £29,854 that paid for wages of local workers (the BUD
team) to engage the local community plus several events and activities to encourage use of
and familiarity of the site. Our new plan has made provision for further funding, although
this has not been committed.
Locally Trusted Organisation
Every Big Local area appoints a locally trusted organisation to administer the finance and
support Big Local activities. Orbit Housing Association has provided this service during our
first three years and we are grateful for the support they offered us in setting up. As Big
Local has developed, we now need different kind of support so from June 2017 our locally
trusted organisation will be Hastings Voluntary Action, which has extensive experience in
supporting residents to realise their aims.
Finance
Our budget for 2016/17 was £164,325. At the end of April, 148,845 had been spent. As we
are currently awaiting our next tranche of funding from Local Trust, we are using the
underspend to pay for our running costs. When this financial year has been reconciled and
signed off, details of the finance will be made available on our website.
Significant spend this year includes,
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Small Grants (18 grants)
Heart of Hastings Community Land Trust (power station site)
Pantomime (4 performances)
Summer fun day (free event for families
Summer outings
4Cs CIC (Community Centre Support)
Community Development worker
Partnership away day
Emergency funding for the Bridge
Winter consultation for new action plan
Eggtooth parenting project at
Ore Valley Primary activity
£15,299
£29,854
£8,302
£5,421
£5,000
£30,000
£13,500
£1,068
£5,000
£7,700
£3,000
Where you can find out more
You can follow our progress on the Big Local Facebook page-NorthEastHastings.BigLocal,
and on our website www.biglocalnortheasthastings.org.uk. where minutes of our
partnership meetings can be found.
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Chair’s Report 2017
We also support one of our resident volunteers, Graham Hodgson to maintain his website,
www.orecommunity.org.uk, which contains lots of information about events and other
goings on in the Big Local area.
In summary, we have had a very busy, productive year which would not have been
possible without the commitment from everyone involved. Special thanks to all the
members of the Resident Led Partnership, Jan Papworth and Lisa Bartholomew who do all
the work behind the scenes and Jim Boot our Big Local representative. Their support and
hard work has made my job so much easier for which I am really grateful.
Pat Simnett
Chair of the Resident Led Partnership
May 2017
www.biglocalnortheasthastings
Chair’s Report 2017