Joanna Holmes is the chief executive of Barton Hill Settlement, a community hub that has been serving the Barton Hill area of Bristol since 1911.
It was set up as an independent organisation by the University of Bristol to provide activities, research opportunities and to campaign for better living conditions for the local population, and became a community association in the seventies. In 2019, Bristol University has been invited back to Barton Hill to rent space for a micro campus as part of the Settlement’s new Micro Settlement initiative.
What is the point of the project?
The point is to inspire and provide what we can for this community to have all the opportunities that this city offers. This has always been one of the poorest areas of the city. In the last 15 years we have gone from 90 plus percent white to 70 per cent BAME and the population is 50 per cent bigger than it was. It’s very important to us to work on what residents want to work on.
There will now be 11 new micro homes for those wanting short term accommodation to allow them to study, train or start new businesses. The University will have three of the 12 new containers which are for organisations. The organisations will be offering something additional for local residents.
Well done to the props team The winner of the tallest sunflower competition at The Settlement pic.twitter.com/S4zFVj7rUI
— BartonHillSettlement (@BHillSettlement) August 15, 2019
When was the moment you decided to do this?
I came to live in this area over 20 years ago when my children were small and started coming with them to our Family Centre, I started volunteering and have had a couple of different jobs here before becoming CEO. I believe in what we are trying to achieve.
What’s been your proudest moment so far?
It’s hard to say because it never stops. You go through such highs and lows. One of the most surprising things was our self-build family centre. It was self-built mostly by mothers.
It was a brilliant project. I have constant inspiration from what people achieve. There are such stereotypes of areas such as this which are very diverse and people are juggling jobs to survive financially but people achieve major things and in all sorts of different and unusual ways.
What’s been hardest?
Juggling what people who distribute resources think is needed here and what residents think is needed here.
How we judge what is needed and what wouldn’t be touched with a barge pole can be complex. For example, we had the potential of a big contract to do employment work with people far from the jobs market.
When we ran it past our board of mainly local trustees their criteria was that it should not under any circumstances result in anyone getting sanctioned from their benefits. This was a strong and useful steer for us and we have proceeded successfully with the project.
What drives you when it gets hard?
Absolute stubbornness and trying to do the right thing. It is so annoying that as Bristol gets richer, this area gets poorer.
It’s the same with all poor areas in the country, actually. How do you stop money leaking out? People here might be doing three zero-hours jobs, they haven’t got any hours in the day to work harder, so we see our job as to tackle causes as well as effects when we can.
What’s the next step?
The build will give us 12 new spaces for organisations and 11 micro homes on the site. If we can purchase a nearby pub and add another floor we can put in another six flats as well as community space.
The other thing we’re doing is merging with the healthy living centre as it has a similar business model. Our remit is stronger families, community inclusion and economic resilience and theirs is health. By coming together we can create synergies and it makes it harder for policy makers to ignore this part of the city. And we can do more together.
Where has funding come from for your project?
Power to Change is funding the ground floor and we haven’t decided on the funding for the first floor. There are options for grants and or loans and we could work with several funders including Homes England or Triodos Bank.
Which funders have been most helpful and why?
Good practice is when you feel that you can be entirely honest and you don’t have to pretend. Funders have to understand the operating environment and that good organisations have good and hard times and sometimes you get all manner of things that hit you at the same time. Resilience is one of the strongest things.
It’s important that funders realise that if we don’t take risks we don’t achieve great things. Those things are important. You need a solid relationship and then funders can take a real share in what you have done. Otherwise you can feel like you are doing it despite the funder which is not a healthy place.
Is there anything that would make it easier to find funding?
What we do determinedly is pilot and do a lot of planning and at which point, when we are convinced of what we need, we will go and seek funding for that thing. We avoid seeking funding for the sake of it.
Researching funding is a part of developing the project you are trying to do. It’s a bit like deciding if the funders offer fits local need. Sometimes it’s close enough but if the funding isn’t exactly right, then it doesn’t work. So you need to know exactly what you want to do, then you know if the funding fits or not.
10. Will Brexit affect what you are doing?
We don’t know. People here were really anxious because they didn’t know how it would affect their status. Some came here via Holland or Sweden and wonder if they should go back straight away.
It’s intensified the pressure on people. We don’t know if the financial pressure will affect people. But some people think, “Well, we’re screwed anyway, so we’ll worry about it when it happens.” We’re involved in one European programme but we have been told that will continue.
