Not everything goes to plan, and not everything that we set out to do was achievable. But we tried and there are lessons to learn
Just because Big Local or the residents thought a project was a good idea, it didn’t mean that it automatically would come true. Sometimes a project gets started and perhaps doesn’t finish or achieve its planned outcomes, but sometimes a project simply cannot go any further even if we tried everything. Sometimes things are simply out of our control.
There have been a few significant examples during the lifetime of Big Local North Cleethorpes. Each of which represents a missed opportunity, but one that even with the best will in the world we wouldn’t have been able to solve…
Housing and Fuel Poverty
Right back in the every first Big Local plan around 2015 we had an ambition to develop approaches to help with housing and fuel poverty locally. A small experimental budget was set aside and a team of volunteers started investigating. Alternative heating and energy and solar approaches were investigated. However, the research undertaken suggested that recent changes in government policy at the time in terms of subsidies for renewables mean that the market was very volatile. In the end, advice given at the time was not to invest in consultants at the time as the uncertainty meant giving reliable advice would be almost impossible.
In addition there was a grander plan to set aside some budget with the idea of purchasing suitable properties to refurbish for socially responsible letting. A workable and cost effective approach could not be found at the time, so in the end this project was abandoned.
Of course the set aside budget was reused for many other successful initiatives instead.
Recent experience watching other local community enterprises invest in social housing has since demonstrated that this is possible, but it is prohibitively expensive and with hindsight Big Local North Cleethorpes is sure than not proceeding down the housing route meant that our budgets went further.
The prevailing political conditions and economic realities at the time meant that this ‘good idea’ was in the end not going to work.
North Beach
Improving and cleaning up the North Beach to improve it as a community amenity was also another grand and valid ambition that in the end failed to progress.
Despite our good intentions and even setting aside some budget, a legal lack of clarity over the acknowledged ownership of North Beach meant that we were never able to get the permissions which would have been required to do physical work on North Beach.
Doing a large project on a piece of land would always require permission of the landowner. However, in this very unique case there wasn’t even a clear landowner. So the majority of Big Local effort over many years was to research and then prove ownership of the beach. Whilst, in the end, and in our opinion we had proved beyond doubt that North East Lincolnshire Council was the landowner (and should have been able to give us necessary permissions), the Council themselves would never agree this.
In the end, without necessary permission it was going to be difficult for Big Local North Cleethorpes volunteers, staff or contractors to get on the beach to do work. Eventually we had to decide not to proceed with our plans and reinvest the funds into something else.
A large, headline project which would have been ideal for Big Local North Cleethorpes to tackle never came to fruition.
Read a bit more about our North Beach project here.
Chapmans Pond
Chapmans Pond was another visionary project. Or at least a project where we wanted to have the opportunity to work out a vision and a way to utilise the pond and land for something community focused probably with an environmental angle.
There was generally plenty of goodwill in this project – even a good relationship with the landowner/developer. However, all the time that the owner wanted to hold onto the site and not sell it, we were unable to progress on our project.
Eventually, it was clear that the landowner was going to hold the site for as long as necessary to develop it, so Big Local North Cleethorpes decided that no project was going to happen within the timelimits of the Big Local funding. We had to abandon the idea.
At the end of the programme Chapmans Pond remains in private ownership for potential future housing development.
Read more about Chapmans Pond here.
The Pocket Park
Residents use a piece of undeveloped land behind North Beach for exercise and walking dogs. It’s long been enjoyed by residents, but there was a wish for it to be something greater. Some redevelopment in an environmentally friendly way could provide better paths; different plants or trees; somewhere to sit or rest; waste bins; signage; better access; better all season availability; greater introduction of flora and fauna and more. The land itself is owned by North East Lincolnshire Council.
Big Local North Cleethorpes supported the residents with their meetings and vision and even funded the drawing up of plans. A relationship with the Council to develop the land was also looking positive. A modest budget was allocated as seed funding to bring in greater amounts.
But a sudden potential major development on the adjoining ABP land (for an onshore salmon farm) suddenly meant that the ‘pocket park’ was taken out of play as it was being held as potential environmental mitigation should any development of the salmon farm progress.
This quickly meant that our plans could not proceed. The plans – at present – have been mothballed and the residents await some next steps.
At the end of the Big Local programme in 2025, the salmon farm had not been fully approved and the future of that development and the ‘pocket park’ site were unclear. The site remains – as before – well used by residents, but without any changes to its condition.
Read more about the Pocket Park project here.
Conclusions
Our most major ambitious projects are the ones that eventually had to be abandoned. But the issues impacting these projects were factors outside of our control.
These are our cautionary tales. Just because funding, vision, resources and willingness are in place, doesn’t mean a project is going to carry through.
The positive is that any spend on these projects was minimal and exploratory and the budgets were all reallocated to completely different projects which will still have had a positive impact on North Cleethorpes during the programme.