REWARDING Excellence!

The recent REWARDS Ceremony organised by Creating Excellence was both inspiring and a timely reminder of what works – and what matters - in regeneration. The REWARDS recognise and celebrate innovative approaches to regeneration, urban design, sustainable development, quality of place, community cohesion or community empowerment.

A total of seven projects were shortlisted from 14 nominees, with two winners and five Commendations for Exemplary Practice. All seven demonstrate a fundamental principle of successful regeneration projects which can perhaps be best summed up as "Nothing About Us Without Us!" Whether nominees are the recipients of major funds or run on belief, enterprise and enthusiasm, all hold one thing in common: local people at the heart of decisions and delivery.

The winning projects were Devonport People’s Park Restoration project and Hartcliffe and Withywood Community Partnership, both of which demonstrate high levels of resident engagement. Devonport Park’s restoration which is due for completion next year has established a new Friends of Devonport Park group (http://www.friendsofdevonportpark.co.uk/) and HWCP (http://www.hwcp.org.uk/) goes from strength to strength as a community-led partnership established in 1998 to lead the regeneration and renewal of the local area.

But perhaps most interesting from a community empowerment perspective is the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft (http://www.prsc.org.uk/). Interesting because it is a bit ‘spikier’ than some of the other nominees. Up front and up-for-it, although it funds activities through enterprise (sale of art work for example), in tone and spirit PRSC is more #ukuncut than UK plc.

PRSC is run as a Community Interest Company – it isn’t part of a government initiative and doesn’t receive grant funding. PRSC exists because impassioned local residents believe their area deserves better; that Stokes Croft can be “a Cultural Quarter ... generating prosperity” and can become “a globally renowned Centre for Excellence in the Arts”.

PRSC action is innovative, direct and engaging, creatively harnessing scant resources to improve the quality of life and remedy failed spaces through community art. Money may be scarce but the work is powered by imagination and an abundance of passion.

In the new world order we aren’t going see the same levels of funding and investment there have been in the past – but with direct action and protest fast becoming mainstream, how long will it be before there’s a people’s republic springing up near you?

View full details of the REWARDS at www.creatingexcellence.org.uk/regeneration-renewal-news-475-thread-0-0.html