People & Partnerships: Cooperation and collaboration, or convenience and compromise.

1. People & Partnerships:Cooperation and collaboration, or convenience and compromise.

2. Sheffield City Council Parks & Countryside Service and Friends Of Groups Sheffield has a fantastic green landscape and the city boasts one of the largest numbers of Friends Of Groups in the UK in comparison to other major cities. These groups work in partnership with us to ensure that our green spaces are well used and well maintained.

3. What is a Friends of Group? Local residents who have got together to support a green space through working in partnership to achieve some of the following aims: • To ensure that a green space is better used by the local community • To provide information to the local community about a green space • To look at strategies for improved maintenance of a particular green space • To identify resources for specific improvements to a green space • To help to make a green space safer • To organise fun days, events or activities for the local community • To carry out practical tasks with us to improve/maintain a green space

4. Firth Park • Firth Park was Sheffield's first publicly-owned park, donated to the then town by steel manufacturer, Mark Firth in 1875. • Improvements over recent years include • First Start Centre - home to a Sure Start Nursery, meeting room, exhibition space, public toilets and cafe • Playgrounds • Round Walk - wooden sculptures and 4 mosaics • Multi Use Games Area • One of 22 City Parks with Green Flag Status – national standard for quality in parks

5. Friends of Firth Park The Friends of Firth Park were formed in the year 2000 A mix of local people giving up their own time to help improve the Park for the local community Work closely with Parks & Countryside to make the park a friendlier and safer place. Involved in long term plans to improve the park –gathering public views and offering advice and involvement about future plans and projects. Meet monthly with public members and Council officers.

6. Firth Park: Ripples in the Pond Project • The project site • A once derelict pond and green space within an urban Heritage Park in a densely populated and diverse area of Sheffield. • The space was previously an isolated ‘no-mans land’ not linked to the rest of the Park – underused and uninspiring. • Aims and objectives of the project • To reconnect the Clock Tower area with the main Park. • To provide a new ‘gateway’ to the Firth Park area. • To provide new recreational facilities, opportunities and experiences for all the community.

10. Cooperation & Collaboration • Joint partnership project between Friends of Firth Park and Parks & Countryside Service • Friends Group – highly involved in consultation, securing funding, design development, tendering • Ownership/Empowerment • Identity – local identity & site history fed into design • Design – innovative and adventurous, bespoke to the site • Sustainability – ongoing maintenance and community use

11. Collaboration & Compromise • Collaboration with Friends of Groups as local partners in green space improvements is essential to develop, fund, and deliver interesting, useable, sustainable and respected spaces. • However, the process is often slow and often requires compromise from all sides – designs, funds, site limitations, resource limitations. • Managing expectations, keeping projects realistic is important when projects developed over a long time frame. • All partnerships with Friends of groups are different – they have different characters. • Developing effective and honest lines of communication & working relationships – key for the good times and the bad.

12. Convenience & Compromise • Relationships with Friends of Group often influenced by requirements of funders • Budget Restrictions – what can be afforded / what can’t • Unforeseen problems on the project – setbacks, delays, site issues • Staff changes – Project Officer, Maintenance Staff • “Council Bureaucracy” – Project Management Changes, Financial Approvals, Procurement Strategy / Approvals, Contractual Arrangements. • Design Changes • Site delays – caused frustrations and the delay of opening event • Working relationships between all partners has been cooperative, although strained at times, requiring compromise throughout.

13. Maggie Hoyles, Treasurer: Friends of Firth Park “I think you know already what I think! All consultation done really well to as many different groups as possible. Funding has been difficult and there is no way the Friends (who have to front the bids) could have done all the form filling without your help. The time everything takes - form filling, consulting, planning is extremely frustrating. Having to wait for different departments to pass plans etc is excessive. Trying to keep people focussed and interested in the project when they see nothing happening for months is very hard. Having to constantly let funders know at what stage the project is at again when there appears to be no movement is also frustrating. However as the boating lake has been awaiting a facelift for 40years I suppose these timescales are minimal!!”

14. Firth Park: Ripples in the Pond

15. Firth Park: Ripples in the Pond

16. Firth Park: Ripples in the Pond

17. Firth Park: Ripples in the Pond

18. Friends Of Groups in general….. • Partnerships with Friends of groups have been and will continue to be essential to developing and managing green space and green space improvement projects • Funding • Link to community involvement, identifying need and wants, engagement, ownership of spaces. • Enthusiasm and commitment • Increasing emphasis on maintenance and need for revenue funding – compromising may become more necessary – the need to say ‘no’? • The Friends of group is not necessarily always representative of the wider community - a small number of people may dominate the group. • Friends of groups lobbying power has positives and negatives.

19. Firth Park: Ripples in the Pond Going Forward • The Ripples in the Pond site has been completely transformed – turning the once derelict pond and green space into an exciting and unique pubic open space. • The site is already being actively used by the community and is receiving positive attention. • The Friends of group will be helping deliver activities and events at the site over the next year – assisting with ongoing place-keeping/place-shaping • Hope to generate interest in the site from the wider community – something for everyone. • New questions around budget cuts, resources and future park maintenance – further collaboration and compromise will be required.