Community Involvement

Community involvement has been an important factor in encouraging public 'ownership' of the regeneration of this quarter of Wisbech and the Nene Waterfront Regeneration Community Forum played a key role in engaging local people and in particular local children.

The forum, made up of local community groups, generated a wealth of ideas, several of which were taken forward for funding.

Successful ideas included:

Heritage Trail with land marks around the town of Wisbech highlighted with brass markers set in the pavement. Visitors and local people can now acquire MP3 players from the tourist offices in the Fenland @ your service shop in Wisbech that are loaded with historical information that links directly to the brass markers.
Project Management Consultants, MACE Regeneration, provided £5,000 for 21 schools to produce giant murals depicting the future of Wisbech. They proved hugely popular when they went up on display as an open air gallery around the construction site.
The MACE funding also paid for a computer and webcam link between the building site office at the Boathouse of Kier Eastern and all 21 Wisbech schools. The broadband link enabled pupils to interview key members of the construction team, including the architects, quantity surveyors, crane drivers, electricians and bricklayers. The projected helped pupils to learn about the site that will transform their town while at the same time giving them a flavour of potential careers when they leave school.
Funding was also found by the project partners to pump-prime the gathering of an oral history of the area from elderly residents. Age Concern managed the project, which will be recorded digitally for posterity and for educational use.
Bidwells, the property consultants on the project, put in £1,000 towards sending four youngsters from the Waterlees area of Wisbech on a five-day sailing course on a yacht sailing from the South Coast to Wisbech.