Review and reflection of ‘Signs of Change’ action day Lakes Estate Wednesday 28th July 2022

At a Lakes Estate Renewal Forum meeting we conducted a listening campaign about issues residents were facing. The stories were powerful. One lady spoke of how a paramedic was not able to find her mum’s house due to the lack of clear signage across the estate. Another spoke about the frustrations of parcels being delivered to the wrong house because the street signs were missing or broken.

We did some further listening through a Facebook campaign and many residents sent in pictures of other broken, dirty, or missing signs. These don’t give a good impression of the estate.

We invited the Head of Highways from MK Council to a meeting and ironically, he had to ring up and ask for directions as he couldn’t find us! During the meeting we shared stories and he committed to our ‘ask’ of 15 new and repaired signs and a ‘Welcome to the Lakes’ sign. His ‘ask’ back to us was to audit the signs and gather information and mark them on a map.

We created a ‘Signs of Change’ event and invited the whole community to clean street signs and do the audit. We invited the Head of Highways to attend but unfortunately, he was away, so instead we invited the Chief Executive of Milton Keynes Council who joined us and a group of 35 residents including children and 3 from our Church.

There was lots of learning! Next time we would spend more time briefing people, clarify roles, asks, expectations, actions and do a run through. The residents did create power but it’s a challenge to change our usual ways of responding to issues, and often confidence is lacking. We need to persevere and keep showing that change is possible through action generated through the Community Organising model.