Lower Green Neighbourhood Challenge

Read the Lower Green Neighbourhood Challenge blog

About the approach

Lower Green Neighbourhood Challenge is building on the initial work of the Lower Green Community Association and the progress made by the local community over the last year. It has created a momentum and has started to raise aspirations and encourage active participation by local people.

Residents will be asked to suggest ideas for solving the issues they face, and those ideas will be considered by a panel of local representatives. The ideas selected for development will receive support and guidance from a Community Facilitator, plus funding from a Challenge Prize, with the intention of delivering local solutions to local problems.

The Challenge Prize is being used to support the locally generated project ideas, both large and small. A particularly interesting feature of the project is the creation of an Endowment Match Challenge Fund by the Community Foundation. The project will invite the community to contribute donations to the fund and will match them. By inspiring local philanthropy, the project aims to build a permanent source of funding for ongoing and sustainable support to Lower Green.

It is hoped that this approach will grow the momentum already created in the area. It uses techniques that support people who currently have low aspirations and social capital, for example encouraging the active involvement of residents through one-to-one and face-to-face contact, and using the skills of a Community Facilitator to support residents to develop their ideas and build confidence.

About the organisations

Project lead: The Community Foundation of Surrey

The Community Foundation of Surrey is an independent charitable trust that enables local philanthropy and builds permanent community funds to support communities across the county. It is part of a national network, the Community Foundation Network. Network members aim to act as hubs for local philanthropy to strengthen and enrich communities. It invests in local communities through grant awards and this includes grants to the Lower Green Community Association. As a result the two organisations have built a working relationship.

Local partner: Lower Green Community Association

The Community Association is a volunteer-led organisation run by local residents which was re-established in 2009 after an inactive period. Based at Lower Green's community centre the Association is working hard to support local people and to create a core group of residents who can lead and invigorate community activity to meet local needs.

About the neighbourhood

Lower Green is a small community in the South East of England. It is situated on the edge of Esher, in the Borough of Elmbridge, Surrey. It has a population of around 1500 with 607 households, of which 75 per cent is social housing. It is physically cut off from the surrounding area by the railway line and river, and there are stark contrasts between Lower Green and its more affluent neighbours in the rest of Esher. It has some challenges to overcome compared to adjacent areas, for example, child poverty rates are more than twice the national average and there are high levels of unemployment, lone parent households and low incomes.