Stoneyfield Park Transformation

By Your Trust | 15 July 2024 | TAGS: Place based partnerships, Local Pilot, Place working

The evolution spearheaded by Your Trust, who have worked in partnership with many organisations including Rochdale Borough Council (Public Health, Environmental Management and Highways teams), Groundworks, Get Up & Grow, Elected Members, community centres and local residents. This evolution and collaboration has been shaped by the asks from the residents in Milkstone and Deeplish. 

Since the initial Place Partnership (formally local pilot) funding in 2019, the Place Partnership team at Your Trust have more than tripled the pot through Match Funding from partners e.g. Public Health, Township, TfGM funding.    

This funding has been used to build new infrastructure in the park. First, a new drainage system was installed, as the park had often been known to residents to be a ‘bog’ for the winter months. Next, a new tarmac playground replaced the sand one, as children were throwing sand at each other which prevented usage. Alongside this new sign and noticeboard was installed and residents were asked to choose an official name for the park to help to cement it as community fixture. Since then, a small figure of eight path was laid around the playground, along with benches to help accessibility of the park for those with mobility issues, or with prams to get around more easily, along with the installation of a kissing gate to reduced anti-social behaviour. Since then, games such as hopscotch have been added to the paths, and fruit trees and flowers planted with the local community to help enhance the greenspace. These were all direct asks from the community.          

This engagement around the park has had a ripple effect into the wider local area, with one-way streets and bollards were installed through Active Neighbourhood project. Although these raised negative concerns at first over time and through engagement from Place Partnership leads and Elected Members, there has been buy-in from residents to now see the benefits and some procedures have stayed in.  

This long-term collaboration as seen a has seen system change within the community. At first, residents were frustrated saying they had been over-consulted and been asking for the park to be re-developed for many years, and they felt that their voices had not been heard, however the long-term nature of this work has allowed trust to be rebuilt.       

By having Place Partnership Lead on the ground in touch with residents on a regular basis, they have built trust, rapport and relationships and had buy-in after a long time. As a result from this, residents, elected members and community champions have now taken on responsibilities themselves. For example, when anti-social behaviour saw the fruit trees planted by local residents stolen, one community champion sourced more fruit trees and planted them as he and the residents were upset and had started to take pride and ownership over the park and view it as shared community space. Residents now check on the trees daily and look after them. This also resulted in the community champion developing his own community garden project and maintaining another small playground area nearby.  

This work has also generated interest from Elected members why have also recently taken ownership have recently additional funding from local township for an extension to the path towards installing CCTV. 

To build on the increased community engagement and ownership we engaged with a local organisation, and we built relationships with the 4 local school co-ordinators and organised for the pupils to co-design and co-produce the designs of some planters, using the Active Travel themes. These have been a huge success as the community now sees these as belonging to local people. Designs include ‘Please look after our park.’  There has recently been a lot of residents speaking to Place Partnership staff, Elected Members, community leaders, the staff building the path and planter designs, thanking them for making their community to be a safe and nice place to visit.  

Another success is the newly established Friends of the Park group. Place Partnership staff have spent 2 years building and developing this group. The group have recently set up a bank account, have new committee members and have linked into Action Together Neighbourhood Lead, working in partnership with Place Partnership staff to submit their first funding bid. They have also been signposted into the council to help co-ordinate a litter pick. 

To embrace this new community space, a celebration event in May was held at the park to show local residents the new planters and path. Despite bad weather, 200 residents still turned up. Stalls from Your Trust, Groundworks, Get Up & Grow, Rochdale BC, TfGM, Friends of the Park, and England Boxing joined us. There were multisport including cricket and tennis, children were cycling around the figure of eight path, using scooters, engaged in gardening workshops, and had health checks. The Friends of the Park also recruited new volunteers.  

The transformation of Stoneyfield Park from an unusable space to a community asset has taken a number of years with the Place Partnership playing a key role in driving change in the area. 

Sarah Shard, Rochdale’s Place Partnership Lead, said: 

“Stoneyfield Park is a fantastic example of how Place Partnership investment can unlock previously under-used community assets to support more people to enjoy the benefits of being physically active. 

“It’s been a huge effort from a number of partners and it’s fantastic to see residents taking more and more ownership of the space as that’ll ensure its long-term success. 

We‘ve received feedback from local residents and ward councillors that since the developments have been made, the park has been used more by families and local people have come to visit the park for the first time which is fantastic. 

The activities have been really popular linking in with local schools and families. General feedback has been that the local people are looking forward to the park developing and excited by the idea. 

As a result of the planters being decorated by the pupils, one school has signed up to the organisation to deliver more workshops for them. Another one of the schools is arranging a school trip with the pupils through a teacher to visit the park and look at the planters the children have designed and show them the new community assets." 

One school lead said, “It has been an absolute pleasure to be part of the Active Neighbourhood Project. The children enjoyed taking part in the art workshop and playing an active part in improving their local park. It would be great to take part in more eco projects in the future.”  

Another school lead said, “The project was a wonderful opportunity for our children to have active participation in a project that promotes citizenship and stewardship for our local area. The artists allowed children to experience art processes they had never had a go at trying before and the children were so engaged throughout. As a result, we are also partnering with the artists to create a piece of artwork involving all stakeholders for our school building. Thank you so much for this opportunity and we are willing to collaborate on any future projects.”