Concordare

A Latin word: to agree. Whether it’s joined up thinking or collaborative working or shared services or total place, the fundamental step is to get diverse people to agree on something and see it through in pursuit of an agreed purpose.

The simple but challenging technique of getting the right people together and creating a collective responsibility for making things happen is now the default for the way we resolve our big service and resource issues.

The output may be a contract, or an action plan, or indeed a Concordat, but the real outcome is the recognition that, ultimately, problems can only be resolved in the places where we work and live by the people who work and live there.

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The Wee Society

Scale matters. I am as guilty as anyone else of writing paragraphs which try and cover all the bases:

‘This unique place . . . responding to the street . . . engaging the neighbourhood . . . at the heart of the community . . . contributing to the town’s regeneration . . . building a regional capital . . . delivering national policy . . . an international exemplar.’

But this Russian doll approach to the narrative of a place can have the unintended consequence of confusing those who live there about the real reasons for change.

We are often asked the question – who is your audience – as if the development of the places we live was primarily an exercise in sales and marketing. Perhaps the question we need to focus on is ‘in whose name are you doing this?’.

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Arbour

The idea of a safe place seems to have been hijacked by the need for secure places. They are not necessarily the same thing.

Feeling safe is central to our sense of wellbeing. So, what makes us feel safe? As always, the most direct way to answer that question is to ask people. Whatever their responses, it is likely that it relies less on the calculus of insurance companies and more on personal circumstances and local context.

Yes, we need places that are secure. But we also need places that make people feel safe in a way that means something to them as individuals.

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