Nicola Bacon and Simeon Shtebunaev, Social Life
Professor Alessio D’Angelo, Dr Nisan Alici and Emily Bathie, University of Derby
On 26th November we convened a one-day symposium at the University of Derby’s Chesterfield campus as part of the university’s ongoing Staveley Town Deal Research project with Chesterfield Borough Council. The project will map the extent and characteristics of local social infrastructure and explore the potential for future development, identifying gaps and priorities.
The aim of our Symposium was to gather academics and practitioners to exchange knowledge on the challenges of researching, delivering, and sustaining social infrastructure, to challenge thoughts and mindsets and step away from preconceived ideas. We asked participants (see list below) to talk critically, openly and imaginatively about how to ensure the current policy interest in social infrastructure can translate into good outcomes for communities. Our discussion was enriched by some participants’ personal relationship with Staveley, as well as the contributions from the Staveley Town Deal manager Deborah Widdowson and the Executive Director of Chesterfield Borough Council, Christine Durrant.
At a time of renewed focus on place-based interventions – with the neighbourhood as a unit of action – social infrastructure is being recognised as a key element for research, planning and implementation. This is reflected in the work of the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods, including its recent report on social infrastructure, as well as in policy on housing growth and new towns: e.g. the New Town Taskforce final report made recommendations reflecting the importance of social infrastructure. Meanwhile, the British Academy has been putting its weight behind research into how we understand and measure social infrastructure.
How do we understand social infrastructure?
Our discussion began with definitions, asking “how do we define social infrastructure as a holistic approach to understanding social wellbeing in places?”
In public policy, social infrastructure tends to refer to spaces, services and structures that help communities to create and maintain social connections and thrive. So Social infrastructure is more than just places; it includes organisations, networks, and the social and cultural infrastructure that supports quality of life, relationships, agency, and support. Relationships between people and place, however, are often overlooked in built environment change and policy making.
Nicola Bacon from Social Life presented their work for the Mayor of London exploring how social infrastructure supports social integration. This highlights the importance of local eco-systems of support, and the need to recognise places and networks that sit outside narrower definitions – community cafés, barbers offering informal mentoring, informal local networks. Support comes through unexpected routes and is not always controlled by local government or formal services.
The idea that social infrastructure is not just a series of objects or systems but the whole place working for the common good was suggested. There is a risk that the current policy focus can "fragment places into objects." In other words, as highlighted by Alessio D’Angelo, it is important to include - but also distinguish between – firstly, the physical structures of social infrastructure and secondly the resources and networks embedded within them and people’s ability to access and mobilise them.
Measuring value beyond the numbers
Nicola Berkley from the British Academy spoke of their work with the Bennet Institute for Public Policy to measure social and cultural infrastructure. The conversation highlighted different ways of capturing the intangible, the vital role of qualitative data, including mapping, storytelling, and case studies. She also spoke about how to capture the "delicate relational" dimension and "invisible networks". There was agreement that we need to avoid the trap of only valuing what is formalised. We need to ensure that grassroots value - "not necessarily places that formal services have an eye on" - is recognised and bought into decision making. We need to focus on relationality and connectivity, relations between people and relations between services and assets.
Grassroots delivery and new models
David Etherington’s work on the impact of austerity in coalfield communities highlights the stark impacts of deregulating labour markets, benefit reductions and increased conditionality and a shrinking welfare state. This political choice - “a form of violence” -, increases poverty, dependence on food banks, and homelessness. It has made social infrastructure work harder as local needs increase and resources to support agencies shrink. But social infrastructure potentially has an important role in rebuilding trust and confidence in local authorities and public funding, moving towards a just transition and greater equity rather than managing decline.
Three different models and examples of local work were presented. Graham Marshall shared Prosocial Place’s work in Birkenhead which focuses on building trust, mentoring communities, and allowing them to build an authentic plan from the ground up, focusing on the “whole place” and local knowledge.
The second model, Urban Rooms, shared on behalf of Carolyn Butterworth, provided us with a concrete example of "spaces where people can come together to co-produce a future for their local area”. Urban Rooms foregrounds local voices, enables broader participation (especially intergenerational and with young people), and builds community identity.
Eve Avdoulos from We Made That described their work on High Streets for All and using small scale interventions to improve relationships and build networks between different actors, giving their work in Blackhorse Lane as an example. This approach uses adaptive strategies and highlights how culture can add value by regenerating high streets, boosting local economies, and reducing inequalities.
We concluded with the idea of permission – are communities increasingly taking the initiative to set up their own structures and partnerships when policy-maker or the public sector are absent or disengaged?
Moving the agenda forward
There was agreement that we need to build "right practice" rather than "best practice" - each community must develop its own way. At the same time, it is vital to avoid reinventing the wheel: we need to look to historical models of participation rather than always expecting innovation to provide our new models. We need to take a systemic view - viewing social infrastructure as part of a wider infrastructure system, but also separate physical structures from access to resources. This is linked to the connectivity issue, e.g. stressing the importance of considering the transport links to a community centre, not just the centre itself.
Finally, when we are thinking about current policy on social infrastructure, we need to always question who is most likely to benefit, and who is at risk of being left behind.
Different local actors can play different roles. For example, there is potential for universities to take a bigger role as spaces of and supporters of social infrastructure, opening up hybrid spaces for city-wide use.
The University and Derby and Social Life look forward to taking these ideas forward, working with everyone who made time out of their busy lives to come to the symposium.
Participants to the symposium included (in alphabetical order):
Stephen Abson, Coalfields Regeneration Trust
Dr Nisan Alici, University of Derby
Dr Larissa Allwork, University of Derby
Dr Eve Avdoulos , We Made That
Nicola Bacon, Social Life
Emily Bathie, University of Derby
Nicola Berkley, Senior Policy Advisor, British Academy
Carolyn Butterworth, University of Sheffield
Dr Rafael Carrascosa Marzo, UCL Prosperity Board
Prof Alessio D'Angelo, University of Derby
Christine Durrant , Executive Director, Chesterfield Borough Council
Prof David Etherington, Professor of Local and Regional Economic Development, University of Staffordshire
Dilan Kaya, Palimpsest
Graham Marshall, Prosocial Place
Amy Melia, PLACED
Daniel Milestone-Mapplebeck, Doctoral Researcher, Staveley Social Infrastructure
Simeon Shtebunaev, Social Life
Deborah Widdowson, Staveley Town Deal Manager
