The Neighbourhood Management led St Matthews and St Marks Economic Task Group has been driving forward the worklessness agenda in the two neighbourhoods. We have successfully made the case for a multi-agency access centre in St Matthews with the Task Group forming a local consortium to deliver services that will support residents to access employment.
We have brought the City Strategy road show to the area and handled local publicity via our community contacts. Hundreds of local residents attended the events and have registered with the City Strategy programme to get people in to work.
The team has helped local groups write bids in to the New Learning in Deprived Communities Fund. As a result of this work, the St Matthews and St Marks areas saw the highest number of applications in to the fund citywide.
The Neighbourhood Management team has worked with the local Police to make the case for a week of action in St Matthews which attracted £26,000 worth of funding from the Safer Leicester Partnership, the local Joint Action Group and the Housing Department. Key outputs have been: increased Police patrols at hotspot locations, new CCTV at Wharf Street North and upgraded CCTV for the whole neighbourhood, seven tonnes of rubbish removed, two football tournaments with over 200 children in attendance, and 1400 information packs delivered to residents. 65% of residents said that the neighbourhood had improved over the duration of the activities. Whilst this is encouraging, it still shows that there is much work to be done in relation to the perceptions of local residents in relation to crime in St Matthews.
Environmental improvements made by the neighbourhood management gardeners have culminated in a community event where local residents, councillors, and service providers joined to celebrate the successful redevelopment of a communal courtyard in St Matthews.
We have worked with the Young peoples Neighbourhood Boards in the two areas to identify activities for young people in the neighbourhoods. The young people secured £1300.00 of match funding from the Ward Community Fund to obtain free gym membership, music production workshops, a cooking course, graffiti arts project and new equipment for the St Marks Youth Centre.
A recent survey has shown that resident satisfaction with St Matthews and St Marks as a place to live has risen from 69.9% in 2006 to 78.9% in 2008. The Neighbourhood Board wants to continue this trend. Over the coming months, we will be focussing on our key priorities: worklessness, education and community cohesion. We believe that with the right support and investment in St Matthews and St Marks the local community have the capacity to make the neighbourhoods better places to live.
Contact
Peter Oliver
Neighbourhood Manager
0116 299 5264 stmatts.stmarksnm@leicester.gov.uk
St Marks Neighbourhood Housing Office. 12-16 Catherine Street,
Leicester LE4 6BA
See also:
St Matthews and St Marks Neighbourhood Delivery Plan
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