Joinery and Joined-up Thinking
Our Placemaking Lead Cleo has been working with Lyme Regis Town Council on a new participatory culture programme. Her on-the-ground approach led to an exciting new collaboration that significantly benefitted their communities, businesses and environment. Here’s Cleo to tell you more.
Talking to people and connecting the dots is key to finding new and beneficial collaborations. This is what happened when I was working on a consultancy to find out how to develop the sculpture trail in Langmoor and Lister Gardens into a participatory arts programme with and for Lyme Regis residents.
As part of my exploration of what the town wanted and needed, I had been liaising with schools and businesses. Woodroffe School mentioned they wanted their students to have more hands-on experience working with creative practitioners on arts and design. Will Reed from the Boat Building Academy told they wanted to engage more with the local community.
Then whilst updating the Council about the consultancy, I overheard about a fund to pay for a Coronation Bench for the Langmoor and Lister Gardens. The penny dropped. Here was an opportunity for a triple win. Instead of buying an off-the-shelf bench, Lyme Regis Town Council could redirect the bench fund to the Boat Building Academy, who cold run a ‘Design and Build’ course for school students wanting to pursue a career in this area, and could design and build a bench for the gardens. I could help the Council to redirect funding, which supports local organisations, trains young people and helps the local economy.
Lyme Regis Town Council, Woodroffe School and the Boat Building Academy were all keen, so this is what happened: Poppy Booth, a tutor at the Boat Building Academy, delivered a course to six students from Woodroffe School. Together they designed and made the bench.
“By having a week at the academy, I unlocked many new skills and undertook an experience I would have never seen myself doing.”
The Bench is currently being carved and will be installed in September in the Langmoor and Lister Gardens
Since the bench intervention, we have now recommended the redirection of another grant awarded to Lyme Regis Town Council. The money was for bird and bat boxes, but we are hoping to redirect this to the Boat Building Academy, where they can run community animal architecture courses. Residents would learn how to design and build homes and shelters for the wildlife in Langmoor Gardens.
“What a brilliant initiative this is, the Council have saved funds and importantly the spend is going directly into the local economy; it offered fantastic career development experience for the Woodroffe students and will now hopefully lead onto to new products being made by community at the Boat Building Academy.”
A big thank you to Lyme Regis Town Council for their openness and willingness to redirect funds and support a new collaboraton.
If you’d like to work with us on a new cultural offer for your town, village or community please get in touch.