An open space workshop, Tuesday 16 October 11 – 3pm (free to attend)

Community Hall at Park Lane Centre, Bradford BD5 0LN (home of Bradford Trident)

This free open space workshop open to all who are interested; not just professionals, but also students, researchers, and those who are active in their communities.  It will be hosted by the National Association for Neighbourhood Management with the kind assistance of Bradford Trident. 

Is localism increasing freedom not just over what decisions can be taken by communities, but how those decisions are taken? Has an era of ‘do-it-yourself democracy’ finally arrived, and is it starting (it would make sense if it were) at the neighbourhood level?

How would it be if every neighbourhood in your town had a different model of local democracy? Would it matter if where you live a traditional neighbourhood council looks after the local park, and cuts the grass, while a mile away residents have voted-in powers for their neighbourhood council to collect £30 a year to keep the local library open?  What if in another part of your town a group of local volunteers had formed a group which now takes decisions over grittier-sounding issues like getting unemployed households into work, or reducing deaths from heart disease?  And what if another neighbourhood group seemed to be making more practical difference than everyone else put together, having started a food-growing business using £1 million they had been given to invest? 

 These are all forms of localism you will by now have come across up and down the country.  On the face of it they are all about ‘putting local people in charge of local decisions’ except some communities are locked into prescribed models of local democracy while others are designing their own models of local democracy.

Sounds exciting, but what exactly are the opportunities and implications of this?  This open space event aims to bring together people involved in different forms of neighbourhood decision-making to discuss the issues mainstream debates may have missed, share experiences, and generate questions and answers which we hope will spark further discussion.

 Participants will include people with first-hand knowledge of Neighbourhood Community Budgets, the new Neighbourhood Councils, Big Local, as well as academics and policy-makers from national and local government.

It’s open space, so the detailed discussion topics will be defined by participants. It’s free, but we will provide lunch. 

Latest: See what issues people are suggesting for discussion, and also add your own, on our wiki page: http://nanm.wikispaces.com/