Shaping Stainforth Exhibition, Doncaster

Shaping Stainforth Exhibition, Doncaster

By Tessa Lynn Comment Closed

Photographs taken at an exhibition in October 2025 at Frenchgate Shopping Centre. Apologies for some blurry imagery.

   

I want everyone to be kind. I want us to feel safe on the streets and in our homes.

   

Can I see my future here?    The future is bright.

   

The future doesn’t have to end here. I trained everyone here, now we need ne premises to train more.

   

We need places for kids to chill. There needs to be less focus on the past and more on the future.

 

We make a difference creating this club right here in Stainforth. I want to make a difference.

   

Shaping Stainforth helped us run free gym sessions for young people this Summer. I want a gym for girls.

   

We want a free gym for teenagers. This is where I come to chill.

   

We need better parks, an indoor sports centre, AstroTurf pitches and places to chill out. We need protected areas for the youth.

   

I just want a better skate park. This park could be designed better – we can help!

   

I wouldn’t be thriving in my career if it wasn’t for Shaping Stainforth. Kerry saw the potential in me and gave me the confidence to apply for the apprentice role. Now I have so many new opportunities.

   

It’s very quiet and calm here. I want to stay, it makes me feel better. I have friends here, it will always be home.

   

Stainforth could be a safe place where everyone knows they will be safe. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel… this is worse than the strike.

   

We need new sports areas for everyone. I’m so embarrassed, it’s so disheartening. Everything is going up. You can’t tell your kids…

   

We should have a community growing garden. Bring the community together, train people in being sustainable, teach kids about the soil and nature. We can make the community everything we want.

We could build something that would keep us here.

   

 

   

 

   

 

Quote: West Armagh

Quote: West Armagh

By Tessa Lynn Comment Closed

“I genuinely think if we continue doing what we’re doing we’re going to promote continued failure and we’re going to continue to have high statistics of addiction, mental health, unemployment and poverty, and we need a new way of going forward to empower local community to have hope for themselves, if we continue doing what we’re doing we’re continuing that cycle of generational unemployment, mental health, disability and addiction”

West Armagh resident and community leader

Video: Conisbrough & Denaby Main

Video: Conisbrough & Denaby Main

By Tessa Lynn Comment Closed

“I’d like decision makers to come out first of all… to the land… to what they are going to decide on… Listen to us. We’ve lived here all our lives. It does affect us greatly.

Just do not decide from afar without coming and seeing what you are deciding on.”

Billy Collins, Local resident and campaigner

Conisbrough and Denaby Main, Doncaster

Hear more from Billy here:

Video: Newport, Middlesbrough

Video: Newport, Middlesbrough

By Tessa Lynn Comment Closed

“When we plan projects and want to achieve success in whatever we do it is very important that we use coproduction, communities need to take part from inception… it is very important that leaders of local authorities they come down to where the communities are. It is so frustrating when leaders are over there dictating what to do without coming down to get involved and talk to people. It is very important to have that relationship with the local residents”

Cllr John Kabuye, community leader

Newport, Middlesbrough

Hear what else John has to say here:

Video: Benarty, Fife, Scotland

Video: Benarty, Fife, Scotland

By Tessa Lynn Comment Closed

“If one’s [energy project] being forced upon us, we want to make sure there’s proper community benefits coming back from that project… There’s no guarantee if we’re going to get community benefits and how much they’ll be and who will administer them, the whole thing… We need to agree what the figure is and it needs to be set in stone… It needs to come to the local community because we’re the ones that are putting up with the loss of the land, the eyesore, all of that”

Charlotte Copeland, Secretary of Benarty Community Council

Benarty, Fife, Scotland

Hear more from Charlotte here:

Video: North Ormesby

Video: North Ormesby

By Tessa Lynn Comment Closed

“Key points that could solve problems straight away and improve quality of life was a new model of tackling low-level crime. Designated addiction services and health villages in our communities, investment in community hubs, having services running through them. Partnership working with volunteers. Compulsory community events in each community. Enabling the community to come up with their own solutions and investment in green spaces and nature…. We need to do something. We are the second most deprived in the country. If we get the smaller things right, we can help the community to engage and activate them to find the solutions themselves to address the issues they face.”

Cheryl Dixon, local resident and community leader

North Ormesby, Middlesbrough

Hear more from Cheryl here:

Quote: Colin, Northern Ireland

Quote: Colin, Northern Ireland

By Tessa Lynn Comment Closed

“The Colin area is a vibrant community that still needs considerable physical and financial investment from the public and private sectors as the potential has yet to be realised because the location is, by and large, designated by government to be socially deprived. The area desperately needs coordinated policy and resources to tackle the underlying problems that continue to exist”

Bernard, Colin Neighbourhood Partnership director

 

 

Exploring Place, Participation and Justice: An Upcoming Moment for Just Neighbourhoods?

Exploring Place, Participation and Justice: An Upcoming Moment for Just Neighbourhoods?

By Tessa Lynn Comment Closed

As the Just Neighbourhoods? project moves into its final phase, we’re preparing to bring together practitioners, policymakers, and academics a dedicated conversation about what our research has revealed.

Across the past two years, we have been working with neighbourhoods in the UK and Northern Ireland to understand why community-led planning remains unevenly taken up, what supports or hinders involvement, and how communities experience justice, voice and value as they engage with planning systems.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that community-led planning (in its broadest sense) does far more than shape local environments, it exposes the deep relationships between place, power, opportunity, and (in)justice. It shows us what communities strive for, what they struggle against, and what conditions help people feel able to influence the future of their neighbourhoods.

To support reflection on these questions, we’re hosting a small, invite-only policy symposium. This gathering will allow us to:

  • share our findings and tentative conclusions,

  • explore their implications for planning practice and policy,

  • consider what more equitable participation could look like, and

  • connect with others committed to creating fairer, more inclusive neighbourhoods.

Although the event itself has limited capacity, we are keen to ensure that the learning reaches as widely as possible.

Over the coming months, we will be sharing insights, resources, and reflections from the project here on our website.

If you are interested in the themes of the symposium or would like to hear more about our work, please feel free to get in touch:
tessa.lynn@henley.reading.ac.uk