Fulham Court Community Group

Fulham Court Community Group work to provide activities for residents on the estate in particular children and young people. The group was based in the estate’s community hall, a 20 year old port-a-cabin. They wanted a new building to enable them to extend their activities.

Fulham Court Estate consists of 440 households in 1930s low-rise blocks. Over the years the estate became known for its problems with antisocial behaviour. “Fulham Court is historically one of the worst estates in the borough with huge problems with violence, anti-social behaviour from kids. It was a dumping ground for difficult people. People used to say don’t walk through Fulham Court or you’ll get attacked.”

The estate has improved in recent years, partly as a result of the activities of the community group. “It’s not as violent now but it’s still not a quiet place! There are pockets of deprivation around here, which actually explains some of the problems. You go out of the estate and see these million pound homes. Kids get frustrated with where they are”.

The community group’s main role is to organise activities for kids from the estate. They run an after-school and youth club, which “enables parents to go to work while the kids play games and do their homework”, and an 'excluded kids' drop-in centre with money from Peabody Trust’s Dream Finder programme. “It means kids can think about what they’d dream of doing and then work back to where they are at the moment and find out what the next steps are”. They also run a summer scheme every year. “We try to take kids off site as much as possible to give them and their parents a break. We’ve taken about 200-250 kids off site over the summer. We’ve really achieved things here. Crime rate on the estate is the lowest it’s been in years”.

The local authority couldn’t provide any funding for the community centre, so the group have decided to raise their own funds and get as many people as possible involved in the design process. They’ve held three consultation exercises. The first was a young persons’ model-making day. The second event was an open day where results from a survey of residents' views about the centre, carried out by local kids from the youth club, were displayed on a ‘talking wall’ of residents' faces and comments. The third consultation event was part of an annual festival at the end of the summer scheme. “Fluid Architects came to the estate with their final design – but it wasn’t a final design, people could still change it”.

Buildings

• Places by Design
• Buildings by Design
• Glass-House grant for feasibility study (no longer available)

Five of the community group members went on two Glass-House courses at Trafford Hall – Places by Design and Buildings by Design. They also applied for a Glass-House grant to fund a feasibility study and community consultation events, for which they commissioned Fluid Architects.

Fluid Architects