News story – National Care Group

COMMUNITY & PARTNERSHIPS | Meet Advocate, Chris

Thursday, 18th January 2024

Chris from Affinity Supporting People Contributes to East Lancashire's Levelling Up Fund Projects

The Levelling Up Fund was designed by the Government to invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK to support town centre and high street regeneration, local transport projects, and cultural and heritage assets.

Lancashire’s successful bid to the fund was to improve travel opportunities for people across East Lancashire, making them safer and greener.

The Woodnook area of Accrington, which is home to one of National Care Group's Affinity Supporting People supported living services, has been identified as a location to be positively impacted by the funding. Chris Knowles, who is a person supported by Affinity Supporting People, recently attended their first community meeting, along with Regional Operations Manager, Leah Whelan.

Chris is passionate about being an advocate for others with learning disabilities and he attended the meeting ready to have his say in what he would like to see happen to help make the community a better place for the people supported by Affinity and the Affinity team. He was determined for their voices to be heard.

In the meeting, the group considered the key areas including:

Movement – how people travel in the area.

Safety – what impacts on safety and why.

Place – how to improve community cohesion.

The areas for improvement which Chris contributed to the discussion on included:

Minimal bus routes during the evenings, staff travel, colleagues needing to live in the local area to get to and from work.

Minimal seating on busses.

Local walkways being dark and overgrown.

Steep hills with no seating / rails.

One-way systems making navigation difficult.

Slippy, uneven narrow paths.

CCTV in the area not focused on high-risk areas.

Long roads with no crossings.

Limited police presence & removal of community policing teams.

Closure of community centre and underused facilities.

Limited green space.

Reduced funding for community events at the local church.

Thanks to the meeting, Chris also connected with their new local councillor, charity leads, fellow residents and business owners who he and the Affinity Team will continue to stay in touch with. Chris and Leah will also join a learning disability advocacy group being held to discuss the session and the next steps in making progress happen.

When they returned to service, Chris and Leah circulated a Levelling Up Fund easy read document, which explains the Government's plans for the funds. They also suggested that any future communications in relation to East Lancashire's actions and developments be shared in an easy read communication so Chris is able to share in his self-advocacy group roles and better support others in the area which he was delighted to report had been taken on board by East Lancashire Council.

Chris is proud to report on these first steps of progress towards making Woodnook an even better place to live and looks forward to updating us on future meetings.