Maybe it was the absurdity of it that got people’s attention. In the end around 500 people said they’d be willing to be in the pool of potential panel members, and the local park party where they announced the results of the lottery was the best attended party yet. Twelve new local representatives were chosen that afternoon, random numbers picked by local kids and cross-referenced against the database of potential panel members. Two-thirds were residents from the estates, and a third were from the houses nearest the park. The majority hadn’t been involved in any civic roles before. “Honestly, I thought they’d never stick at it” says Jan, with a wry smile. “And maybe I was a bit resentful that they got paid, not much mind, but after we’d put all that work in for free, it was a bit galling. But they did mostly stick it out, apart from that one gentleman who had family issues, and to be fair, they managed to get more done than we ever did”.
The Nowhere Trust’s community organisers worked with them over the course of their two year term, helping them work well together, manage conflict and make decisions. One of the organisers, Safiyya, explained the tricky balance involved in the role. “We are working to help them build their power as a group. We are very much there to facilitate – and that’s where being able to pay them is so important. We’re all equals with different roles – theirs to decide, ours to hold the process and the space. It’s challenging, but when it works, it’s brilliantly exciting”.
The Panel took a little time to acclimate, but quickly Jan noticed some changes. “They supported a local teacher to run regular forest school sessions for the little kids but advertised them on the estates first. I think that meant that all those kids and their parents got more comfy coming to the park. The swings were suddenly much busier!”. There was a series of small but very practical changes – creating some designated barbeque areas with big fox-proof bins and an online booking system so people could see whether others were already planning to use the space.
They hosted a series of community circles in the park about expectations, behaviours and desires. Jan attended some of them and noted “to be honest, the thing that blew me away was how off-putting some people find dogs. I mean lots of us are dog walkers but I had no idea how scared some people were of them. Now we have some agreed dog-free times. Because so many people were involved in the process, people are more comfortable asking others to move on if they are there with a dog in the dog-free time”.
Now on their fifth cohort, the members of the Panel are getting more ambitious. While 2023 was all about the park, in later years they extended planting and other schemes along the neighbourhood’s streets and through the estates.
“It’s like the whole place is a park now”, says Jan. “I see more birds and butterflies around and so much of the new planting is edible. It’s really nice walking down the street. I feel like it’s more looked after somehow and I think that is what began to change my mind about the whole thing”.
“One big thing was when the Travellers came”, she says. “Every couple of years they would turn up, and we would kind of brace ourselves – people didn’t like them being there. There would be more mess, and it always felt like locals were looking to the Friends to sort things out. This year someone got in touch with them and found out when they were coming; they organised a welcome party and a skill share and mapped out a bit of the park for them to stay on. I actually went to the welcome party and chatted to some of them. I can’t believe we’d been in this antagonistic relationship with them for years and never even had a conversation”.
The local authority judged the pilot year a success and has seen both the general health of people in the neighbourhood improve as well as fewer instances of anti-social behaviour. There is also a growing cohort of ex-panel members who are now more deeply involved in civic life. The rest of the borough now has similar citizens’ panels and other areas around the country are taking note.
“We genuinely never wanted to exclude anyone”, says Jan, “but it was obvious even then that we were, somehow, excluding people – or more accurately, we were gathering people around us who looked like us and thought like us”. She pauses again, looking over at the family playing on the swings and sighs pensively.
“I have a better sense of how other people see the world now and that actually means that this park – and, well, really the whole world – has become much more magical to me”.
With thanks to Catherine Max for some of the ideas in this piece.
