How to get Communities First running right

I find it disappointing to read this in regards to the accusation that Communities First "has not delivered good value for the significant amount of public money spent on it".

Last December I was invited to the AGM of one CF, the Oldford estate in Welshpool. Everything that is right about CF is typified there. A three-year Action Plan launched in December 2007 involved over half of the households on the Oldford estate. There are a number of sub groups that concentrate on the environment, young people, training and education, crime and community safety, active community and facilities. The annual reports from these groups showed significant yearly improvement. In short the estate is a better place to live than it was and the Chair confirmed this to me when we had a chat.

If there is a genuine need to improve CFs in other areas, they couldn’t do much better than follow Oldford’s example.


nick