Sheffield City Councillors have developed a new scheme aimed at making the council more responsive to residents’ views on how to improve local areas.
The ‘Cleaner, Greener, Safer’ initiative will be rolled out this weekend as surveys and will be sent to residents in Beighton, Chapeltown, Walkley and Westfield to canvas opinions on the state of their communities.
Coun Mark Jones, Cabinet Member for Environment, Streetscene and Climate Change, is overseeing the project.
He said: “The initiative is about making where you live feel more friendly and accessible. It’s also very much about connecting people and reinforcing positive mental and physical health.
“We want to increase the vibrancy of local communities and allow people to live better lives, in an environment which is safe and welcoming.”
The survey will run for 6 weeks and cover subjects such as street cleanliness, transport links, green spaces, fly-tipping and access to amenities.
Following this, the council aims to encourage investments and enhance the communities in line with the views expressed in the survey responses.
The plan is to use these first four areas as pilot sites for the initiative and gradually implement it throughout Sheffield if phase one is successful.
“Sending the survey to the four sites will give us a valuable learning opportunity as a council to ensure that the questions we are asking and the way we are asking them are pertinent,” said Coun Jones,
“Once we’ve established that this is the right way to go about it, we will apply it to other areas around the city in an incremental manner.
“Ideally, we’d like to have real conversations with people but in the current context, we can’t do that. Once the vaccinations have been fully rolled out, we will review how we can go about in a more personal way.
“This initiative gives people the opportunity to take a role in shaping their own communities, and in doing that they will hopefully feel a degree of ownership and loyalty to local business.
“Through that, we can build a more sustainable economy that will last going forward.”