Sixteen of the most troubled communities in the UK are soon to be piloting the Your Square Mile initiative devised by the Big Society Network, the Network’s founder Paul Twivy announced this week.
Your Square Mile is a scheme that aims to encourage the UK’s citizens to work together with their neighbours, local civil society organisations (CSOs) and local authorities to build social capital within their localities.
Speaking at the Green Alliance conference on the Big Society on Tuesday, Twivy (pictured) urged the audience to visualise 8,000-10,000 “neighbourhood states” up and down the UK, comprising 6,000 to 8,000 people each, all working together to improve their locality.
“In rural areas this might be a large village or a collection of hamlets; in urban areas it will be a couple of wards,” he said, "or as far as you can walk in 15 minutes from your home."
Twivy said the Big Society Network would “systematically provide a framework for the communities to organise themselves as citizens, to work with local authorities and civil society organisations to make change. We will show them it is so much more reachable than they imagined.”
He said 16 of the UK’s most challenging rural and urban communities would be piloting the scheme over the next six months.
By the summer, a support package will launch comprising “a local software platform that will stretch across mobiles, digital platforms and public access screens in Boots pharmacies and newsagent windows; books and other printed materials; advice on grants; and a constructive relationship with their local authorities”.
“There’s been enough talking, it’s time to do something about the Big Society,” Twivy said. “Who knows, it might fall over in the early stages but unless we make a start we’ll never know.”
He said the digital platform and printed materials would be ready by the summer and by September a new nationwide mutual called ‘Your Square Mile’ would launch, which every UK citizen will be able to join.
Asda has already been announced as the main sponsor of Your Square Mile.
