Place profile-Maindee (Victoria ward)

Population : 6,700

Strengths of the area

  • Maindee has recently become a Communities First area as part of the central cluster.
  • Maindee Festival Association-annual community festival-this yearwith “Seeds of change” theme. The group have become more involved with wider community projectsand are about to embark on a front garden project, improving the gardens of elderly residents and renovation of a park in the neighbouring ward.
  • Maindee Action Group (MAG) established with wide membership and delivers a dry goods coop (24 families access and 12 on waiting list), has connected withNEST who will provide outreach work via MAG. An Anti Social Behaviour subgroup has grown out of the group.
  • Fairoak nursery runs a Fruit and Vegetable coop , a gardening club, and a Sharing healthy cooking ideas 'Come Dine with Me' Cookery Club.
  • Community House-a well used community resource with an interest to becoming more energy efficient.
  • Maindee primary school has a good reputation for community involvement and has a large outdoor space but it is likely to be used to build a new Welsh language school.
  • Rodney Parade, the home of Newport Dragons and newly promoted Newport County, is in Maindee
  • There is a sense of close community among the settled BME population
  • Proximity to town centre and the new university campus. Access to both is much improved following the construction of the Millennium footbridge.
  • Nearby riverside path which has heavy investment in it but the community don’t see it as a resource.
  • PCSO’s (Police Community Support Officers) well respected and very engaged with the community
  • New detached youth workers in the area and a weekly Izone bus to tackle antisocial behaviour along witha Thursday night youth club in Community House.

Weaknesses of the area

Overview

There is ambiguity and a lack of consensus about the identity of Maindee and sense of “place” currently confused by a lack of defined boundaries and definitions of wards. The political name for the ward, Victoria, doesn’t precisely correspond with the area of Maindee and residents never use this nomenclature. Community members feel area has been neglected by local government and often over looked for development and so is a “blind spot for Newport City Council”. House prices have fallen, crime risen and there is a sense that area has “gone downhill recently” and is dying.

Housing and Fuel poverty

A Fuel Poverty survey conducted in 2010/11 identified 116 households as likely to be in fuel poverty in the area. There is a large proportion of hard to treat, poor quality and poorly maintained housing. Housing data shows a high proportion of owner occupiers, however a significant amount of housing is in factunregistered, privately rented property with multiple occupancy. This is impacting on educational achievement and health. The area has negligible social housing stock and so doesn’t benefit from thissupport.

Health

Food poverty –Reported poor nutritional packed lunches in school with new immigrants not entitled to free school meals. The success of dry food coop is an indication of food poverty. There are no major supermarkets in the locality and there is limited access to fresh produce. In contract, there is a glut of fast food restaurants in the area.

Recreational and green space

Maindee has the lowest provision of formal/ informal recreational/ play space in Newport. A 2006 report into the provision of open space found that the area only had 2 hectares of land for this usage but should have over 16 hectares (based on the National Playing Fields Association requirement of 2.4 Ha/ 1000 people). Maindee has one small residential park which is a hot spot for drug dealing and anti social behaviour. Public realm space is poorly designed and unexploited. There is no growing space or allotments. This is compounded by the fact that many residential gardens appear underused/neglected.

Transport

There are reports that cars are used for many short journeys particularly on the school run.

Local Businesses are struggling.

Maindee has its own commercial district but there have been many shop closures recently. There is no focal point to attract trade, particularly since the closure of Maindee baths and local anchor storessuch as Co-op and Peacocks.

LEQ and Flooding

Maindee suffers from LEQ issues including graffiti, litter and to a lesser extent fly tipping.It also suffers from a high flood risk from tidal fluvial flooding,resulting in high insurance premiums and there is no known evidence of community preparedness for flood planning.

Community Cohesion

Residents have complained for years of a lack of community meeting space, particularly as Community house is at maximum capacity and is only open to regular group meetings. Maindee library has been proposed buthas limited space.

A railway track bisects Maindeeresulting in the separation of the two areas and the communites within them.There is a large transient population of economic migrants/ students/ ex offenders especially living east of railway with no (perceived) emotional attachment to the area.

Crime and ASB:

The crime rate in Maindee has increased in recent years along with the perception of crime. There are a number of hotspots for drug dealing,violent crime and anti social behaviour. This increasing crime rate has been partly blamed on the proliferation of multiple occupancy housing.

Opportunities and ideas

Lack of Green space/ recreational space

Public realm space should be redesigned and made more inviting or useful either for recreation, or as a focal point, meeting place or growing space. Recognising the limitations of space in the area it is worth exploring the potential for a DIY streets project to reclaim streets for the residents. This could create play space or growing space and build sense of community, increase, physical activity, active travel and reduced car speeds. There is also an opportunity to connect Maindee to nearby gren and blue space that isn’t being accessed through improved paths, interpretation boards/signage and development of points of interest (eg public sculptures) to accompany the route. Establishing a Maindee fun run could help promote such routes.

Growing Space

The area would benefit from a community growing space. This would simultaneously help address many of the areas priorities. A small number of potential sites will need to have land ownership explored. If such a space can not be sourced, another look at public realm space reveals a number of unutilized small strips of grassed land which are neither biodiverse or productive. There is potential to establish an area wide growing and fruit tree planting movement such as Incredible edible Maindee. This could give Maindee a unique selling point or even an opportunity for tourism Community green space mapping could help identify such land and build ownership. Gardens could also be more productive-horticultural workshops and starter kits could be offered to enable this. Creating a landshare scheme may also be an option.

Giving the area a facelift

The physical environment in Maindee would benefit from a boost which may increase a sense of civic pride. A front garden competition could be launched to encourage this. Expanding Maindee festival’s front garden project or extending garden share provision for those unable to maintain their garden would also provide volunteering opportunities. Maindee would benefit from a sense of greening up through tree planting, installing planters, planting climbers on sides of buildings or even vertical growing. This would make the streets more welcoming and reduce opportunities for graffiti. Further there are a number of uninviting and for some intimidating railways bridges surrounding Miandee. These could become a celebration of entering Maindee with a public art or lighting project.

Boosting local business

Local businesses could benefit from the improvements to the physical environment as more people choose to explore the area on foot. There should also be a coordinated effort to better exploit the increased footfall created by Newport Gwent dragons and Newport County on match days. Further there may be potential to develop a local buying scheme.

Community cohesion

Maindee would seem to be in need of establishing a new community space to give people an opportunity to be more connected. There are a number of opportunities including the listed but disused Miandee baths which is currently owned by a resident who wants it to be developed into a community space but doesn’t have the capacity to do this.

Flood risk

Maindee would benefit from establishing a network of community flood groups to better prepare for and cope with the aftermath of flooding.Incentives could be provided to home owners to make gardens permeable and exemplars of green roofs on public buildings or bus stops could raise awareness of SUDS.

Fuel poverty and energy

There are opportunities with ECO and Arbed 2 not currently targeting the area. There is a need to find ways to ensure unregistered landlords access the support and carry out improvements to their housing.

There is potential for joining a collective energy switching scheme, although residents with prepayment meters would be ineligible. Data suggests the area has a low level of digital inclusion and some assistance with more conventional energy switching could be beneficial. There may also be potential for a community renewable scheme and Gwent Energy CIC have shown an interest in this. I am currently working with Community House to advise on energy efficiency or renewable energy measures. This could act as an exemplar as there is very little evidence of renewable energy in the area.

Threats/challenges

  • It is essential to establish community support and find a shared vision for the area.

There is a need to reverse the downward spiral in the area

Engaging with unregistered private-rented property could be problematic

Identifying land which isn’t lined up for development

Engaging and involving the transient population in west Maindee could be problematic and would require an agency or group with links on the ground

NCC regeneration team is concentrating its efforts on renewing the city centre and Pillgwenlly and so it is unclear how they might contribute to proposals

The associated time/ cost/ complexity of physical environmental improvements and community building renovations mean improvements might not occur within the timescale of Cynefin (but establishing a delivery group to carry out an action plan may be).

Newport wide background data

  • The Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) describes Newport as the most deprived local authority area in Wales under the Physical Environment domain.(air quality, flood risk etc)(UNA)
  • Domestic CO2 emissions in Newport are amongst the lowest per head in Wales, but Newport has one of the highest volumes of emissions due to industrial and commercial activity(UNA).
  • Volume of waste produced in Newport remains a critical issue as the landfill site is approaching capacity and it is therefore important to reduce waste as much as possible (UNA)
  • People in Newport eat less fruit and vegetables (34% of adults eat 5 a day)and are less physically active (27% meeting physical activity levels) than the average for Wales (UNA)
  • The inequality gap for life expectancy has increased from 9.5 to 11 years for males in Newport (UNA)
  • The inequality gap for healthy life expectancy has increased from 20.1 to 21 yearsfor males and 19 to 19.7 years for females. (UNA)

•Newport has the 4th highest hospital admission rate for drug related conditions in Wales

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