Grassroots developments

Case studies demonstrating a range of bottom-up initiatives which bring people together through mutual interest or to meet community needs. Some of the case studies are local authority/partner led and others are grass root - emerging from the community.

Local authorities and partners are trying to strike a balance between building and sustaining supportive networks in their communities and avoiding too much intervention/over-specification which can be counterproductive.

Debate centres around the role of the state -national and local- in shaping and responding to community capacity which risks not meeting local priorities and adding to inefficiencies and concerns that without state investment/ intervention, some groups will lose out.