By Rob Mackinlay

Having no masterplan or top-down agenda may be the only way to find out what your community really needs and give you the manoeuvrability to deliver it. A project in Nailsea, Somerset has been running with the idea for nearly five years with surprising results.

WHAT form would the perfect community engagement mechanism take? Would it be a pub, a café, a GP’s surgery or a library? And could you answer this question without narrowing the field by taking a punt on one or other of these options? Institutions that need to listen to their communities may do well not to choose. Having no masterplan and no agenda has been the most consistent aim of a project in the North Somerset town of Nailsea. Initially funded by Nailsea Town Council and NHS Digital, and now in its fifth year, the project remains intentionally hard to label. It is known as 65 High Street and it continues to deliver a variety of responsive solutions for its community.

Ian Morrell, one of the founders of No 65, believes the response of communities to Covid has demonstrated why community spirit performs better than an organisational plan. “Trust is the vital element. When people trust a venue or other people in their community, amazing things happen. That’s what we saw with Covid. Communities responded at speed but it wasn’t about a national policy because everyone was winging it. It was because of trust, compassion, goodwill and common sense. That’s where the agility of No 65 comes from. We have an ethos which means we trust the process rather than try to adhere to a strategic plan. We’ve got to be fluid in the way that we respond to what people want in the community and we can only do this by being generous listeners and having a mentality of why initiatives can be made to happen, not why they can’t. We are risk aware, not risk averse.”

Totipotential

Dr Malcolm Rigler, a retired GP and CILIP member, who approached Ian with the initial idea, and has been involved in the Nailsea project from the start describes the problem: “One simple example was one of my patients who was deeply in debt, and she wanted to know how to deal with it. But we weren’t taught where to go for advice about debt at medical school – yet when these problems appear we need to be able to help the person quickly. There are cells of the human body which, when they are unformed, are called totipotential. It means they can become anything. And the idea is that this high street place can be anything for anybody. It is not about saying ‘we are here to offer this or that service’, instead it is about listening and becoming aware of the issues and problems that people are having in their lives. It is the public health revolution we need now in a world where we are suffering more from psychosocial problems than infectious disease.” Malcolm says projects with these goals are not new, the best-known example being the Peckham Experiment (1926-1950) and there other existing examples like Pioneer Projects in High Bentham, Yorkshire, which predate Nailsea. Malcolm said: “The Peckham Experiment was not just about medical solutions but also things like learning to swim and building – about learning from each other and creating what we now call social capital. But it has always been hard to assess the impact – the beans can’t be easily counted.”

Problems revealed

No 65 seems to have those totipotential characteristics and Trudy Hollow, who runs the building now that Ian and Malcolm are less involved, describes how they work. Trudy started part time in 2018, a year after it had opened and became the full-time manager in February 2022. “I never know what is going to come up next,” Trudy says, “It could be town council-related, enquiries, complaints, signposting to groups and organisations, footpath clearing but recently I’ve also had queries ranging from bees under someone’s shed to how to apply to host a Ukrainian refugee family.” She said: “Ian started off with the ethos of ‘a pub without the beer’. I feel it’s more like a tourist information centre but for information, activities and signposting for residents. Having said that, nine times out of ten my colleagues and I find that when people come in with a query it’s usually human contact that they are looking for. That’s when it is more like the pub without the beer. So, I have my regular visitors, five or six a week who come just to speak to me. They initially came in with a query, but the bigger issue was human contact and then, after getting to know them, these other issues in their lives come up. Things that they didn’t initially come in to talk about but, after establishing a relationship with them, they feel a bit more trust in that relationship, that’s happened a lot.”

Problems solved

In the example given by Trudy, the totipotent characteristic is the ability to give individuals and communities the confidence to identify their own problems, and patiently wait while they do this. The next step is being able to offer a solution at a human speed rather than a bureaucratic one. Ian says: “Information and knowledge are among the resources people need to develop resilience – the crucial thing is not being just one service but responding to whatever is needed. And I think this may be something that libraries could adapt and take on.” One example is No 65’s food project. “When covid started, the idea of a food project emerged on a Thursday evening and on Monday morning we started it.” The project involves local supermarkets, allotment holders as well as food club members who pay to join but receive a lot more in return. “A community group started it at No 65 and it grew so quickly they had to find other premises and are now based at 26 High Street. It works on lots of levels. Not only providing food to people without the stigma that can be attached to food banks, it occupies an empty shop so the landlord benefits because they are not liable for the rates. It also generates more activity on the high street – footfall – which is why private businesses love libraries and post offices. And also, the companies donating food are meeting their corporate governance goals about reducing food waste.” This process highlights that No 65 needs to remain adaptable to ensure it can be a springboard for new ideas they are working with already, or have yet to be identified.

Leadership and sustainability

“An important aspect of this approach is distributed not charismatic leadership,” Ian says. “Part of the reason the Peckham Experiment and others have struggled to sustain themselves is that they often relied on charismatic individuals and when they were no longer around, there wasn’t enough built-in sustainability. I know that 65 is in good hands with Trudy because she promotes the fundamental ethos which is that the guardians of No 65 are not an ­organisation but the people who use it. That might sound terribly idealistic but, five years on, it is still the reality of it.” Malcolm agrees, giving a personal example: “I set up a GP surgery that focussed on arts and health and the succession planning was not even considered. It was celebrated by the local health trust but no one thought about what would happen once the leading people left, and it all died a death.”

Health and digital

No 65 has been extolled as a pilot digital health and literacy hub. But both Ian and Malcolm say these are not core to its mission. “Digital technology had very little to do with our original concept,” Ian says “But it gave us the opportunity to test out ideas and loads of different things have come from it.” He said the connection with NHS Digital led them to work with the Good Things Foundation “who were brilliant with us, incredibly helpful with a range of skills we didn’t have .” Case studies and discussion about the project can be found on the Good Things Foundation website https://bit.ly/3v3MbWU work they have done and include examples like a dementia sufferer being shown how to make facetime calls to his family because they it made communication easier than the telephone. But Ian said No 65 probably wasn’t the holy grail the NHS was looking for. “I think they have the idea that the more people engage with digital technology the easier the NHS is going to be to manage. They want pilot projects with scalability and rollouts. But you’re not going to get a model here where you press a button and it explodes into 500 centres across the country. They are looking for the magic secret of engagement with communities, but missing the point that the character of every project has to be built from within the community not from an organisational process.”

Trust

Ian believes a missing ingredient is often trust. Not so much about trusting people with money – but trusting relationships that already exist in communities. “You can go off and get £20k from a funder but then you have to fulfil a load of obligations that take you off in the wrong direction – so the money is the tail wagging the dog.” In Nailsea trust has built up over many years “The fact that I was town clerk for 13 years helped. A lot of persuasion was needed, a lot of work. I couldn’t convince 20 councillors, but I only had to convince enough of them. It definitely isn’t a model you could just chuck money at and it’ll work.”

Where do libraries fit in?

Ian says: “The temptation is to see a building as providing a service and say to people ‘this is what we offer, either engage or don’t ’. Like libraries we are one of the ‘Great Good Places’ in communities because we’re connecting people. Libraries, like No 65, are part of the local fabric where people can go for different things and are trusted sources of information. The reasons people cross the threshold of a library are likely to be the same ones for coming to No 65, including asking for something about healthcare that they don’t want to ask their GP about. The problem comes at the point where the system says, ‘I’m sorry we can’t help you and people then feel disconnected and isolated’. Libraries and places like 65 can focus on each other’s strengths. Depending on an individual’s need, the library might be the best place to go, or No 65 because it’s a more informal casual kind of arrangement”

Work to do

“Work with the library doesn’t go much beyond advertising each other’s events” Trudy says, “Maybe there are things that librarians are asked about, and would like to help with, but do not have time, like looking into things like Ukrainian refugee applications.” These relationships exist with all sorts of groups in the community. “If I get a customer in here with a particular problem that I think someone else could help with, we liaise with each other. So, for example I have a good relationship with the two women [who run the food project at No 26] and they come in here to discuss some of the extra support they can’t do that 65 could offer.”

Wind down

The flexible nature of No 65 means that it can explore new opportunities when external events force it to change. Before the pandemic there was a Citizens Advice Bureau service on Mondays and Fridays. Trudy says: “During covid it was all contact via telephone and people found it really hard to get through. When those barriers were put in place it stopped people from looking for that help. They are back now, but offering appointments not drop-in. I can understand it is a more efficient way of working for them – a lot of people who drop in can’t be immediately helped because they don’t have the right paperwork with them.”

Wind up

During Covid the Nailsea Disability Initiative relocated to No 65: “They had to release their unit in the town as it wasn’t economically viable – they had previously approached the council for grants to cover rent but we now offer them space at 65 for free They are here Monday and Thursday but I’m here five days a week so I act as a sort of shop front for them, explaining what they do and giving contact details. When they had their own shop their shutters were down when they weren’t there. They are a really busy organisation. They are putting in a bid to start up their own debt advice service here as well. And seeing what’s coming with the cost-of-living crisis, I think, alongside Citizens Advice, this will be really good.”

What next?

“We’re recruiting a community wellbeing officer,” Trudy says. “North Somerset Council will be providing two years of funding for this post who will be based here at 65. And we see that post very much as engaging with all local groups including the library. At the moment everyone seems to be doing their own thing and getting that communication in place across the board could be really helpful. To find out about where the over-laps are, and where are the gaps.”

No 65, CILIP and training

While acknowledging the broader remit of 65, Malcolm charts its roots back to health projects like Peckham. But he believes that the wellbeing role is now more information-based. “I think librarianship could be the right training and librarians the right people for the future high street learning centres. Creating an environment where people with all kinds of problems can gather is quite a skill. “I hope the new CILIP President’s interest in staff development might include new opportunities for trained librarians within their communities. One of the pioneers of the health hub movement that Malcolm cites, Bob Gann, started a health hub in Poole. He is now Digital Health Literacy Advisor at the NHS and is working with CILIP on the Health and Digital Literacy Partnership. This says it will “support citizens to develop the skills that they will need to access, assess and use health information in an increasingly digital environment.” Somerset Libraries are among the first wave of pilot sites and Information Professional will be covering the partnership in greater detail in future.