Planning for the future in Wybourn

An update on our Wybourn Neighbourhood Plan 2024-2039

05/03/2024

At Great Places, we want to ensure that Wybourn remains a vibrant community where everyone can thrive for years to come. That’s why we’ve been gathering information about the area, the people who make up the community and their wide-ranging needs, so that we can continue to meet these needs as they change over time. We’re committed to using our resources and collaborating with other organisations to make living in Wybourn better, which is why we’re in the process of updating our Wybourn Neighbourhood Plan 2024-2039.

We asked

In Summer 2023 we started the Neighbourhood Plan work by talking to customers and residents, businesses, partners and stakeholders in the area about what’s important, and their priorities for the future. We sent a resident survey via email, text or post with links to our online engagement platform Our Voice. Posters were put up, more than 2,000 leaflets were posted through the letterboxes of all residents living in Wybourn, and support staff were on hand at the Pat Midgley Centre to provide assistance.

We want to say thanks to everyone who completed the survey either in person at our community centres or via the dedicated page on the new Our Voice customer engagement portal. Your insight will truly help, by contributing to the evidence we’re gathering, and shaping the future plans for Wybourn.

You said

We received 42 responses to the consultation via Our Voice the online engagement portal or surveys sent to us by post or handed in at the Pat Midgley Community Centre. The key priorities residents told us are most important include:

• Environmental issues, including street lighting, litter and fly-tipping;
• Spaces for young people and children such as play areas;
• Road safety concerns such as speed bumps and speeding bikes;
• Community safety concerns, including police presence, anti-social behaviour, substance misuse;
• Maintained open spaces.

We did

Your feedback has been shared with various service areas at Great Places and is already helping us to shape our plans for 2024. We’ve shared your feedback with partner organisations and are now discussing how we can work together to address the key priorities for Wybourn residents. This includes:

Open Spaces: We’re working with The Green Estate to look at the maintenance of our open spaces, and have lots of exciting plans in the making. This will build on the progress we’ve made since November 2021, when Great Places brought our Grounds Maintenance of public open spaces in-house. This helped us to deliver our services more effectively and monitor them more closely, and whilst we recognise there are still improvements to be made, we’ve seen an increase in customer satisfaction, which is great news. For the public open spaces that Great Places don’t own or manage, we’ll share your feedback with Sheffield City Council.

Spaces and activities for young people: Great Places works with lots of local organisations to support activities for young people. A key partner we’re working with is MASKK, a local charity that provides a range of activities for children and families across the Manor Castle ward area. Look out for what’s on offer! Or if you want to find out more, you can get in touch with the Great Places’ local team by emailing pmcommunityhub@outlook.com

Fly-tipping and litter: Many of the responses we received raised fly-tipping, litter and the quality of the environment as important, so we’ve raised this as a priority among Great Places colleagues. We’ll be starting a conversation this year, and we’d like you to get involved – so look out for more communication to come! We’ll also be reviewing our Grounds Maintenance offer to see if we can provide more litter collections, however, this will need to be balanced with the cost and impact on the service charge.

Community safety: You’ve raised concerns around community safety, identifying road safety, anti-social behaviour and substance misuse, as well as issues with some street lighting not working properly. Great Places will now raise your concerns with our local partner organisations, Sheffield City Council and South Yorkshire Police, who we meet with regularly. Whilst addressing these issues will take time, we want to encourage community members to report any criminal activity to the Police by calling 101, anonymously via Crime Stoppers Onlineor calling 0800 555 111. You can also report anti-social behaviour to Great Places here. To report a fault with a streetlight to the council you can log it via https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/report where you can also report other matters such as anti-social behaviour.

What happens next?

You have identified your priorities and we’ve said what Great Places is trying to do in response. In 2024, we’ll be running additional events to discuss with residents how we can make progress on these matters – look out for more details to come on this.

In addition to what we’re already doing, this year we’ll be using your feedback to help shape and update the Wybourn Neighbourhood Plan 2024-2039. We still want to talk to more local people about what’s important to them, now and in the future. You can follow the progress of the Wybourn Neighbourhood Plan here.

Does our communication work for you?

We understand that not everyone likes receiving emails all the time. It’s important to us that we send our messages out in a clear way that is easy to access, and for you to be able to provide any feedback. Is there any way you would like us to communicate that we don’t already do? Or is there anything we could communicate better, or differently?

We’re going to be running focus groups in the coming weeks – this is your chance to come along and speak to us about the way we communicate key updates, whether that’s our emails, social media posts, leaflets or website articles. These will be held at the Pat Midgley Community Hub; keep an eye out for further updates on dates and times.

Please get in touch by emailing pmcommunityhub@greatplaces.org.uk if you would like any more information about the focus groups or if you would like to express interest in taking part – all views about our communication channels are welcome!