Poplar Community Priorities

The third workshop was all about understanding the community’s priorities and digging deeper into the ideas proposed in the previous workshops.

Introductions

The third workshop was all about understanding the community’s priorities and digging deeper into the ideas proposed in the previous workshops. This workshop ran online and once everyone had joined, it began with a quick introduction by Jez from Shared Futures CIC, on all things IT. This was also an opportunity for participants to introduce themselves and say whether they’d attended any of the previous workshops and the chat box at this moment started to become very lively! Overall, the workshop was well attended, with some familiar faces from workshops 1 and 2 and some new faces as well. 

Following on, a presentation was shared on the screen and Kat from URBED introduced the Poplar Green Futures project for anyone new who had joined for the first time and as a useful recap for others as well. She set out the agenda and shared some of the key findings headlines from workshops 1 and 2. 

For the main activity, the group was divided into 3 smaller groups, who then went into their own breakout rooms. The groups were divided as follows:

• Group 1 looked at themes 1 and 2 (Air Quality & Travel and Green Spaces & Food Growing)
• Group 2 explored themes 2 and 3 (Green Spaces & Food Growing and Homes & Energy)
• Group 3 looked at themes 3 and 4 (Homes & Energy and Resources & Waste Production)

Exploring Further Ideas

Within the breakout rooms, a jamboard was shared and for the first round, each group looked at one of their first themes. On each of the jamboards there was a list of ideas on virtual post-its that came out of the previous workshops as well as an accompanying map of Poplar with the ideas mapped around the neighbourhood. Once the breakout room facilitators introduced the jamboards and read out the list of ideas, people had the opportunity to bring up any additional potential ideas that they had, which were recorded on some blank post-it notes. Some examples of some of the ideas that came out of the conversations were:

“using roofs to create more green spaces and grow things”

Group 2 participant, on the theme of Green Spaces & Food Growing

“encourage shops to provide paper/ starch paper bags rather than plastic”

Group 3 participant, on the theme of Resources & Waste Reduction

Prioritising Ideas

Once all the new ideas were added to the jamboards, the facilitators pointed out some tokens on the left side of the screen, grey ones to mark people’s priorities, and pink ones for any questions and/or things to consider. This was now an opportunity for participants to vote for their top priorities and raise any concerns that they might have had with any of the proposals. Participants were able to either speak directly to the group or post their comments in the chat box and then a facilitator could place an appropriate token next to any of the ideas. Some other things the groups could consider were: ‘why do you think it is a good idea’; and ‘who could be involved in the project’?

After picking their priorities for one of the themes, the groups alternated and moved on to the next theme/jampboard, repeating the process. Some of the discussions that came out of the breakout rooms are described below:

In group 1, on the theme of Air Quality & Active Travel, there was a big discussion around car ownership and the cost of car ownership, as well as the importance of safer roads for cyclists, which came out as their priority. As something to consider, the group also agreed that when discussing cycle-friendly roads, it is important to consider pedestrian needs as well.

“Safer cycling infrastructure can encourage everyone to cycle, not just those who are already confident”

Group 2 had an in-depth discussion about fruit tree and herb planting and food growing within the neighbourhood. Awareness raising around the topic of food growing came out as a priority. Some concerns were raised by the group regarding maintenance issues in relation to some of the ideas, one participant explained:

“What if fruit won’t get picked up? It would start to rot and would need to be collected”

Within group 3, the priority and focus of the discussion was around raising awareness of energy efficiency measures and bringing information to the community. One participant expressed:

“would be good to have a service where an expert comes to your house and does an ‘audit’ and advises what you could do to make your house more sustainable. As it’s difficult to know where to start re: insulation / what the issues with your particular house might be”

After a productive priority discussion session, the breakout groups all returned to the main room and a facilitator from each of the groups shared their group’s ideas/comments back to the rest of the group. The day finished off with Kat outlining the next steps for the Poplar Green Futures project. A good number of participants expressed their interest in staying in touch and keeping involved in the future of the project.