[For the agenda of Levenshulme Community Association meeting, 5th June 2010]
Bringing together Levenshulme’s residents’ associations & groups.
(1)In recent yearsaround ten new residents’ associations & groups have been created in Levenshulme. They vary in scale, origins & activities but they share a common interest in improving their neighbourhoods.
(2)These different associations & groups want to remain independent and to focus primarily on very local issues. But sometimes they identify concerns shared with other associations & groups facing up to similar issues & problems. All, for example, need to relate to the City Council in different ways, and work with the same Council officers & structures.
(3)There have been very fruitful campaigns in Levenshulme drawing on people & energies from different associations & groups (e.g. Friends of Levenshulme in 2007). In other cases campaigns have stimulated the formation of new associations (e.g. the Greenbank Residents’ Association following the fight to protect Greenbank Park from new development). There have been examples of direct cooperation on particular issues (e.g. between Delamere Neighbourhood Group and Bristol & Gloucester Residents’ Association in relation to local traffic management). For all these reasons many members of the different associations & groups are individually known to each other.
(4)We feel that it is time to explore whether there is a basis for more formal connections to be made between these associations & groups. For instance, would there be interest in holding regular joint meetings to share information & experience? What about developing a simple website to map the locations and give contact details for all the Levenshulme residents’ associations & groups, and include on the website advice & resources for local residents who might want to start a new group?
(5)We would like to discuss the above at the LCA meeting on the 5th June, and if there is general support for a gathering of the residents groups to meet again, propose a further dedicated one-off meeting should be arranged. This would be to discuss these ideas more fully, and any other ideas that people want to put forward for the agenda. There should be no assumption that this would automatically lead to other regular meetings; this would be decided, for or against, in these initial meeting.
David Mottram
Bristol and Gloucester Residents Association
Sara Harris
North Levenshulme Community Group