Pride in Place Project Concludes with Co-Creation Workshop

Over the last few months the Northern Housing Consortium and our members Blackpool Coastal Homes, Karbon Homes, Livv Housing Group, MSV Housing Group, and Yorkshire Housing have been working with Thinks Insight and Strategy, the leading research agency founded by Deborah Mattinson, currently the Labour Party’s Director of Strategy, on Pride in Place: Housing at the Heart of a Rebalanced Country.

Making the most of the sense of community and belonging prevalent across the North, as well as empowering residents themselves, will play a key role in supporting all areas of the country to thrive. As part of the NHC’s work, we’re committed to underlining the importance of our members to any national agenda looking to reduce local and regional inequalities. Pride in Place is central to that work, and has brought together residents from both the social and private rented sectors together to understand what pride means to them, what makes a place enjoyable to live in, and the role we all need to play whether the community directly, NHC members, or national government.

The fieldwork for the project concluded last Wednesday at a Co-Creation Workshop hosted by Yorkshire Housing. Ten residents were joined by stakeholders representing organisations with a part to play in making great places including the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities. Each were tasked with working together to identify and co-create potential solutions and initiatives that could improve pride in an area. Through the workshop, we wanted to learn what residents prioritised for areas like theirs across the North and how we could all contribute.

Findings from this workshop will inform the development of recommendations, both to the sector in how we engage communities on our placemaking work, but also to Government, showcasing the full breadth of how NHC members contribute to regeneration in the broadest sense, tackling inequalities, and overall, improving community belonging. You’ll soon be seeing the NHC at Party Conferences in the Autumn and November’s Northern Housing Summit will see the launch of our final report.