Communities working together to provide smart solutions in tough times

The work of Seacourt Community Council is a perfect example of how voluntary and community organisations are offering effective, efficient and valuable services to communities and we encourage other groups to share their own examples of smart solutions.

Seacourt is a mixed housing estate in Larne town. It has had a very troubled profile with both interface and intra-community tensions.  The Community Foundation for NI has invested £210,000 in the area to develop new community structures, to build community cohesion and invest in community leadership.  As a result of the establishment of Seacourt Community Council the estate has won the Best Kept large housing estate competition three times through local people undertaking environmental projects and working with agencies to refurbish and re-let empty properties.

There is a successful youth club with 108 members and a detached young adults project (16-25s) with 40 members, all run on a voluntary basis.  Work has been done on removing graffiti and the flags and emblems issues have been resolved through participation and the local group representative showing leadership in the local Flags Forum. Policing is in conjunction with the local community with the PSNI now represented on the Community Council and other agencies, the NIHE, the Council, Youth Services and Health and Social Services regularly attending Seacourt Council meetings and delivering services into the area through local structures. The council community centre is now being run by the local group and is open seven days a week.

Bertie Shaw, Seacourt Community Council says:

At the outset, nobody wanted to live in Seacourt . Now we have no void properties. At the start, everybody was looking to transfer to another area to live. Houses in the area could not sell. I can remember one house that remained on the market for 3 years without an offer and at that time it was being offered for sale at £24,000. Within three years of Seacourt Community Council coming about, that particular house has now been sold 3 times over and the last it was it sold was for £145,000. The most expensive property to be sold in Seacourt, which was 18 months ago, was £170,000.

Read the full case study at www.communityni.org/news/communities-working-together-provide-smart-solutions-tough-times

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If you are delivering Smart Solutions in Tough Times then we also want to showcase your work, so tell us what you're doing and tell others.

NICVA will highlight the work being done by the voluntary and community sector to help ensure that vulnerable and disadvantaged people, families and communities continue to receive the services they need and the hard work done to build up communities does not start to unravel due to difficult financial pressures.

Learn more about Smart Solutions in Tough Times.