Townhill & the Phoenix

Townhill (a large ward made up of two communities - Townhill and Mayhill, locally known as the Hill) was the only URBAN I Community Initiative area in Wales.

URBAN ran between the mid-1990s and the end of 2001 and saw £6.3m invested with £2.73m match funding from Swansea Council. The Phoenix Community Enterprise Centre cost £1.3m and aspired to meet community needs and to generate an independent income stream thereby reducing dependency on government grants.

Altogether 28 projects were delivered by this innovative bottom-up approach. The programme was steered to fruition by independent chairperson Mr Ian Spratling OBE who passed away suddenly following a tragic accident at home on the same day Prime Minister Tony Blair came to Swansea to open the Phoenix. 

The cynics thought this was a waste of time and money but here were are over twenty years later and the Phoenix is still flying. It continues to be run by the volunteers employing 25 local people with no government grants for running costs. High levels of commercial expertise married with strong community engagement are the reasons for the Phoenix's success. Without buy-in from residents it would never have got off the ground.

In line with other major high-level initiatives at the outset there was a lot of grant funding. This secured the support of local and national government officers. The public service machine was mobilised. There was wide consultation. There was community engagement, and there were projects - 28 in total. The size and scope of the URBAN programme might have been larger than many similar schemes, but the approach was the same. However, there were extremely important differences. 

The ethos of the programme was to take a bottom-up approach - easy to say but incredibly hard to do and maintain over time. Local people were valued on their terms. Councillors were fully supportive and this was shared with national politicians at a Wales and UK level. 

Very high levels of commercial expertise were married to the priorities and energies of local people. Goodwill, trust and respect were maintained at all costs. 

A book chapter which plots the story in more detail is available here -

From Despair to Hope

I was up at the Phoenix very recently and it was bouncing with activity. 

That visit made me wonder, not for the first time, why the ambitious hopes and aspirations for grassroots community development have taken root up there, where they seems to have withered and died in similar communities around the country? The answers are very clear to me. 

One of my aims for this site is to share my views on why the Phoenix has thrived. My focus will not be to repeat the history as recorded elsewhere, but to unpick the reasons why we have seen this success story unfold as it has. 

I am not quite sure at the moment how I am going to do this, there could be an article or two, or perhaps a book length exploration - it all depends, and my garden is my main priority. But this website will contain some of the key areas which anyone considering learning these lessons will need to concentrate on. 

When I was writing about the Phoenix around the lockdown period, I had a chat with my friend and mentor the late Roy Phelps about his perspective of his role as Chairperson and voluntary board member for 17 years. Reflective as always Roy provide the measured response that despite all our successes, the Phoenix was a story of opportunity lost. I agreed - we could have done so much more. What and how, will be part of my focus.