Community Conversations: The Responses August 2018 Hannah Roderick Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency Community Conversations March - July 2018 Contents Introduction 1 Who responded? 2 How did they respond? 6 Question one 7 What is life like in Middlesbrough for you and your family? Question two 11 What could be done to improve life in Middlesbrough For you, your family and others around you Question three 19 What could your role in that be? Question four 22 What would help you to do this? Question five 25 How would we know that things were improving for people in Middlesbrough? Next steps 30 2 Community Conversations March - July 2018 Introduction This report brings together the initial analysis of the responses from the Middlesbrough Community Conversations, that were hosted between March - July 2018. Volunteers or staff members from 42 different voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) asked people in their communities to answer five questions: 1. What is life like in Middlesbrough for you and your family? 2. What could be done to improve life in Middlesbrough For you, your family and others around you 3. What could your role in that be? 4. What would help you to do this? 5. How would we know that things were improving for people in Middlesbrough? 3 Community Conversations March - July 2018 Who responded? In the period March to June, the 42 VCOs spoke to 1765 people, from across all the Middlesbrough postcode areas. From May to July, members of the public, Councillors and Middlesbrough Council employees were also invited to host conversations. This resulted in a further 110 responses. Note: We asked hosts to record only the name and postcode of each respondent (if the respondent felt comfortable to do so). Voluntary and Community Sector Hosts: Total Al-Hadiyah institute 35 Breckon Hill 38 Bridging the Significant Gap 30 Carers Together 10 Charwood Kinship Carers 73 Cleveland Wheelers 19 Community Ignite 50 Coulby Newham Baptist Church 54 Creative Minds 50 Ethio Teesside 69 FRADE 73 Hart Gables 11 Hemlington Linx 70 Investing in People and Culture 50 Inward Bound 50 John Paul Centre 50 Linthorpe Road Resource Centre 51 Mano River Union 50 Marton Community Centre 55 Men's Cave 50 MFC Foundation 50 Middlesbrough Community Church 31 Middlesbrough First 30 Middlesbrough Live at Home Scheme 11 National Federation of Occupational Pensioners 14 NEXUS 63 NUR Fitness 50 Pioneer Credit Union 38 Recovery Connections 53 Roseberry Consortium 10 Samosa Sisters 39 Straightforward 50 Support Team Children and Carers, helping all development society 52 Teesside Ability Support Centre (TASC) 19 Teesside Ugandan Community 10 The Other Perspective 53 TRAC 50 4 Community Conversations March - July 2018 Train them young 21 Trinity Youth and Children’s project 50 Wellness First 44 Woman Today 58 Youth Focus North East 31 Other: Council Employees Surveys 54 Rosedene Nurseries 36 Voices for Volunteers 20 Some hosts provided us with additional information, from that we know that within the 1875 people engaged, at least: • 575 were from the BAME community • 281 were children or young people • 88 were older people (50+) • 11 were from the LGBT community 5 Community Conversations March - July 2018 How did they respond? The tables below note the responses (and the number of times the same response was given). In cases where conversations were hosted in groups and the host did not record the individual responses, instead producing a summarised report, we have applied the following rationale: All/ every 100% Majority/most 75% Many 50% Some/ several 25% Few 10% So, for example, if a host was talking to a group of ten people and said, ‘Many of them felt Middlesbrough was a lonely place’ we have taken that to be five responses of the comment ‘Lonely’. To see how this information can support the social regeneration agenda to be most effective, we have attempted to align the responses against the priority areas: • Strengthening our local economy • Increasing employment levels • Increasing educational attainment • Improving health and wellbeing • Improving the physical environment • Improving community life We have also added ‘Crime and community safety’ following the overwhelming number of references within the responses to crime and the effect it has on peoples’ experience of Middlesbrough. Within each question section, we have also included some direct quotes from respondents, that help to build up a picture of how people feel about life in Middlesbrough. All of the responses (in their raw, mostly handwritten form) are available to reference, should you wish to read and record more direct quotes. Please contact [email protected] 6 Community Conversations March - July 2018 Question 1 What’s life like in Middlesbrough for you and your family? Positive Negative Open General comments: Good 295 OK/fine 171 Challenging/hard 126 Great place to live 97 Friendly 74 Calm/relaxing/chilled 62 Pride in our town/don’t want to live anywhere else 56 Deteriorating 52 Accommodating / refreshing 50 Happy 50 Left behind nationally 33 Not great / not good 32 Boring 25 Love Middlesbrough 25 Lost (struggle to find purpose or satisfaction) 24 Depends where you live (uneven experience of life between wards) 19 Mint when Boro are winning or on sunny days 16 Stable 13 Bad/horrible/nightmare/sh*t 9 Could be better 9 Council not active in responding to needs 6 Better than where I lived before (another UK city) 5 I don’t like living here 5 Bad reputation 4 Better than my family members abroad 3 Parmos 3 MP is good 1 Economy: Comfortable 100 Poverty/debt/deprived 51 In a rut (individually as a town) / gloomy 40 Low house prices / cost of living compared with other areas 7 Cost of living/CT rates high 6 Affluent 1 7 Community Conversations March - July 2018 Employment: Unequal access to opportunity 95 Full of opportunity 50 Too many 0-hour contract jobs as only option 50 Low wages 49 High unemployment 27 Tough since works went (SSI) 14 Education: Low aspiration 36 Teesside University (and the students it attracts/ investment) 19 Good schools/ nurseries / education / family support 16 Middlesbrough College safe and accessible 1 Health and Wellbeing JCUH/local healthcare is good 90 Isolated / Lonely 44 Reduced social care / old people struggling 2 Greater support needed for mental health 2 Nothing for children with additional needs 1 Physical environment: Need more houses fit for purpose / bad landlords 57 New or good shops/ restaurants / orange pip 45 Things are getting better/regeneration 42 Clean streets/Council make an effort with parks etc. 35 Easy to travel in and around 24 Landscape 18 Difficult for disabled/older people to access/limited transport 13 MFC/ Riverside Stadium 9 Traffic/poorly designed roads 7 Good community centres / museums and libraries/ MIMA etc 6 Bad Parking/very limited 5 Potholes/bad surfaces 4 Limited green space / reduced 2 Sad to see houses knocked down and not rebuilt 2 Recent investment in Parkway Centre 1 Heritage 1 Less pollution 1 Public parks are rubbish 1 Cutting down trees 1 Pollution 1 Poor bus services 1 Community: Harsh for young people/nothing for them to do 148 8 Community Conversations March - July 2018 Very little for younger children to do (at little cost) 120 Lots of social activities/fun 72 Nothing to do round here 46 Limited sense of community / no unity 46 Glad to live in a place with so many people wanting to see it improve 44 Changed a lot over the years 39 Good people try and make a difference 29 Lack of cohesion 26 Change round here isn’t really for us 23 Busy 22 Untapped potential 18 Communication barriers 16 Good to see and experience different cultures 14 Lots of distractions 14 Supportive church community 10 Family Orientated 9 Too many places to eat/drink and little else to do 7 Too many asylum seekers 7 Well integrated community 2 Something for everyone 2 Ageing Better Middlesbrough 2 Homelessness 2 Generous/charitable people 1 Feel wanted 1 Parents always have to work / never see them 1 Struggling parents/naughty children 1 People have no respect for each other 1 Lots of people struggling without a faith 1 Crime / Safety: Crime/increase in crime 114 Racism/experienced hate crime/unwelcome 103 Climate of fear/unsafe 90 Drugs and drunks on streets 78 Lots of gangs/youth on streets 46 Litter/fly tipping/graffiti 33 Bicycle theft 26 Police give us a hard time 22 Prostitution 21 Some places I daren’t go 17 Hear a lot of domestic abuse 16 Safe/secure 15 Dangerous bike riding/driving on streets 10 Good policing / helpful police 2 Dangerous 2 No gun crime 1 9 Community Conversations March - July 2018 Quotes Racism and discrimination are an issue though improving. The city is increasingly becoming multi-cultural and facilities for new comers is better than it used to be. Lack of language and cultural understanding of how things are done has been mentioned by many respondents to be barriers to integration. People usually prefer to mingle with people of the same background or ethnicity and this has been an obstacle to learning more about the city and the opportunities it offers. Investing in people and Culture Young people reported that drug-dealing is common in many parts of the town (wards referenced; Gresham, Ayresome, University, Thorntree and Brambles Farm) and it makes the town not so safe to live in with the consequences of young people being groomed by drug dealers to both consume and/or deal. The Other Perspective We have slum landlords profiting off vulnerable families who have no other choice but to live in unsuitable or unsafe conditions due to public housing shortage.