Shared Vision
Community-Student-Staff Research Partnership for Public Engagement with
underused Open Spaces
Project contacts:
Julia Kendal, Sustainability Action Officer, University of Southampton: j.kendal@soton.ac.uk
Barbara Hancock, Training Co-ordinator, Training for Work in Communities, bhancock@twics.org.uk
Partners:
- The Community: This project has helped SO18 Big Local make a lasting positive difference in the communities by helping understand current barriers to use of the spaces, and how to overcome them
- The City Council: Greater use of the green spaces will make them a point of stability during the redevelopment taking place in Townhill Park and Harefield
- The students: improved their research and team-working skills, as well as enjoying being able to have a positive impact in the Southampton community during the studies
- The University: Its reputation and connections with the community groups and local residents has improved. This partnership approach to research will be shared with the wider university community as a model for future work
Engagement activity:
- Brought local residents and university students together to research local views on and current use of the green spaces, and to identify the biodiversity found there
- Organised pilot community activities to raise the profile of the green spaces and help residents to identify local wildlife
Project summary:
The Shared Vision project brought together the University’s Centre for Environmental Sciences (CES), SO18 Big Local, Training for Work in Communities (TWICS) and Southampton City Council (SCC) to research local community use of three underused open spaces (Frogs Copse, Cutbush Hidden Pond and Harefield Woods) and to increase local appreciation and ownership of these spaces.
A goal of the project was to provide the evidence base for future work by SO18 Big Local by gaining better insight into local residents’ views on the green spaces. Local residents participated in surveys and focus groups. Traditionally the University has had limited interaction with the residents in SO18; this project gave them the opportunity to not only interact with student and staff researchers, but to be directly involved in research that will have a tangible outcome for their local area.
Key Outcomes
- Dissemination of the research into local ecosystem services via production of a dissertation, a peer-reviewed publication and presentation to local communities
- Biodiversity surveys (BioBlitz) of the three spaces by local people with support of students, staff and SCC
- Identified the vision, aspirations of local people for the open spaces, and existing barriers to current use
- Co-created with the local community an action plan for SO18 Big Local Partnership to implement to achieve greater use of the open spaces, making best use of its resources to achieve their priorities
Lessons learned
To address challenges such as diverse partners involved - it is critical to outline the different expectations and goals from the beginning of the project and agree where these dovetailed and where separate events/activities needed to be undertaken to achieve them.
What's next
The University’s Sustainability Action Programme will continue to support the work of SO18 Big Local through promoting to students any volunteer opportunities in the community such as the Nature Hunts and other engagement activities.