VALUE Added
4A12.2: Ex-post assessment of different models for long-term management partnerships
Tom Moore, Berna Keskin and John Henneberry
December 2014
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Introduction
This report provides an ex-post assessment of the different models for long-term area management
partnerships that have been used by partners in the Interreg IVB funded project ‘VALUE Added’. This
project has been carried out across four European countries (UK, Belgium, Netherlands and
Germany), involving six investment projects in Amersfoort, Manchester, Sheffield, Liége, Zeebrugge,
and Stuttgart.
The ex-post assessment is composed of information collected using the theoretical model which has
been used throughout Work Package 4 (WP4) of the VALUE Added project. This covers four key
elements which enable us to consider the circumstances of each investment project: the character
and context of each initiative (looking at political, legal, economic, social and cultural circumstances),
measures of performance, the key stakeholders, and the detailed design of each investment. These
four elements are not isolated, but interactive and interrelated. Representatives of each investment
project were asked to provide information on each element, as well as to conduct an analysis of the
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) specific to their area management vehicle.
This information was collected through telephone interviews, the transcripts of which were shared
with project representatives to confirm their validity.
The assessment contributes to the overall aims of WP4:
•
To use enterprising partnerships to deliver greater sustainability, efficiency and opportunity
in the provision of services and amenities
•
To establish flexible and innovative structures that maintain long-term engagement and
bridge the gaps between different sectors and departments.
Many of the organisations participating in the Value Added project are in the early stages of
formalising their partnerships and vehicles for area management. As such, it is necessary to provide
a short introduction to each investment project and a description of their current progress:
Amersfoort (Park Randenbroek): There are two investment sites in Amersfoort: one is a playground
and swamp forest in the Park Randenbroek, which is supervised by the municipality. The other is the
redesign of a former hospital area next to the park into a green park, which is supervised by the
Elisabeth Green Cooperation. This is a new vehicle which will involve partnership working between
the municpality and stakeholder/interest groups, including local citizens.
Liége (VLS – La Chartreuse): The objective of the investment site is to open a park – La Chartreuse to a broad public. The site also includes a cultural heritage building owned by a not-for-profit
organisation. There is no clear area management vehicle due to the legal responsibility of the local
authority to maintain the site and ensure safety of the public. However, while this is restrictive as to
the type of AMV that is possible, other stakeholders including local citizens have been participating
in the care and maintenance of the site, and it is possible they will wish to take on more
responsibility. This creates conditions for a potential new AMV.
Manchester (CFT – McDonalds Meanwhile Site): The objective of the investment site is to transform
a derelict brownfield site into a community food growing space. A group of individuals act as an
informal collective, coming together to grow food and manage the site. These individuals are
coordinated by the Value Added investment partner Community Forest Trust. This site is located
behind a McDonalds Restaurant, which is the tenant, and owned by the local authority.
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Sheffield (SYFP/SCC – Edward Street Park): The investment site in Sheffield is focused on
redevelopment of public space for local residents and is coordinated by Sheffield City Council and
South Yorkshire Forest Partnership. The site has been in local authority ownership but, on a
piecemeal basis, rights and responsibilities for ownership and maintenance have shifted to ‘friends
groups’ and private contractor delivery.
Stuttgart (VRS – Fils Valley Heritage): The investment site is an industrial heritage cycle route which
will provide information and learning about heritage in the Fils Valley. The site does not yet currently
have a single area management vehicle, the 16 contributing municipalities manage public space as
per social conventions in Germany. There are groups of local citizens interested in contributing to
the investment, whose informal grouping may be considered an additional informal form of area
management.
Zeebrugge (VLM - Cathemgoed): Belgium has a clear legal structure for public space, with the local
government responsible for welfare and maintenance. The investment site is a public green space,
which will act both as a buffer zone between a village and the highway, and as a public area for use
by local residents. There is not significant enthusiasm for the public to assume responsibility for the
management of the site, and the municipality will remain in absolute authority over the site. Local
residents have been involved in local planning and zoning to gauge perspectives on the site’s use.
The remainder of this report presents material collected in the telephone interviews. A matrix is
presented summarising the key elements of each AMV, using information and quotations from the
interviews. A thematic conclusion is then provided, describing the progress AMVs have made
towards the development of their partnerships, and highlighting the important interrelations
between character and context, aims, objectives and performance measures, and the stakeholders
and structure of AMVs.
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Character and Context
Political, Legal, Economic, Cultural and Social Circumstances
Amersfoort
Park Randenbroek
Management of the first investment site is decided by tender over a ten year period, with maintenance and park restoration
part of the tender. The tender is for the professional market and no voluntary groups are involved. The second site, the former
hospital area next to the park, is under the supervision of the Elisabeth Green Cooperation, which is an AMV that may involve
civilians and the municipality working more closely together in management and maintenance.
Community Forest Trust
McDonald’s
Meanwhile
Community Food Growing
Project
There is no structured committee, the members of food growing area which AMV managed by themselves but it is done on a
quite voluntary-loose structure. So they have not got an organised group as such so that is very informal. The site tenant
(McDonald’s) still does infrastructure maintenance, such as repairing fences and managing the mature trees on site which
encroach on to neighbouring properties.. The rest of the site maintenance things like just keeping it clean and tidy, cutting
back weeds is carried out by the community.
SYFP/SCC
Edward Street Park
There has been some difficulty in creating a new AMV due to uncertainties around potential revenue income and the lack of
an established or substantial community to approach and reach out to. Efforts have been made to create a friends group or
possibly a neighbourhood forum to become involved in the maintenance of the park. Some of the maintenance is secured,
through AMEY who collect litter bins (25 years) and Sheffield Homes who maintain elements of park management, but other
expense has put potential community partners off (such as ZEST, who would need to generate an income from the park to
make it viable). This is despite interest from the local authority in a community asset transfer.
Ville de Liege
La Chartreuse
In Wallonia, local political decision-makers are legally responsible for issues in public spaces, which explains the strong and
central role the local authority wishes to play in the management of the area. However, the area of La Chartreuse, owned by
the municipality, has been derelict for a long time and this provoked other stakeholders (including citizens) to engage in
conservation and enhancement of what is a cultural heritage site. This has created the conditions for a new AMV involving
those who are engaged in one way or another with area management. The objectives are to: ensure the quality of the area for
users, attract new users to the park, to management human activities in the area, and to coordinate the actions of the various
stakeholders to create a more efficient area management.
VLM
Cathemgoed
Held consultation sessions with different groups of people (farmers, young people, elderly people, sports clubs) to ask them
what they want in the area. They also used a snowballing technique, identifying key actors in the village and asking them to
engage people they knew in designing the zoning plan of the area. But this is a new thing culturally in the local area: “In
Belgium we are not used to ask people to help to manage public spaces” “in Dudzele the only thing that can be seen as an
AMV is to involve individuals by grazing of public space by sheep”
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VRS
VRS is working on a regional level and they don’t get in close contact with local organizations. AMVs in the way WP4 defines
Industrial Heritage Route them are not very common. In Germany local political decision-makers are legally responsible for issues in public spaces
(Fils Valley)
therefore the local authorities play the most important role in the management of the area. However, there are lots of small
groups with different purposes and interest areas. They come together spontaneously or as “friends-of-group” (e.g.
Technikforum) to exchange information on cultural and social topics in the context of the industrial heritage.
Measures of Performance
AMV’s aims, objectives, characters, context, resources, limitations
Amersfoort
Park Randenbroek
In the Area Management Plan, the expectations and described standards of maintenance are described. Agreements are made
with contractors with regards to the type of service level they should perform. Every 4 years the virtual site checks are done.
Every 3 year, a survey for tree check is undertake. On an irregular basis voluntary groups can measure the biodiversity in the
park by registering special species they have discovered via a website.
Community Forest Trust
The aim of the project is to get local people involved in growing food.
Reduction in antisocial behaviour.
McDonald’s
Meanwhile To demonstrate to the local authority that communities can put Meanwhile spaces to productive use and manage them
Community Food Growing effectively.
Project
SYFP/SCC
Edward Street Park
Ville de Liege
La Chartreuse
There are a number of different stakeholders with responsibilities for different parts of the park, e.g. AMEY and Sheffield
Homes, there is no single AMV. Those contracted to manage distinct parts are measured against that particular responsibility.
From the point of view of SYFP and SCC, in the future they think measures of performance may include the number of people
visiting, number and type of activities, as well as quality standards for maintenance (of e.g. streets and paths) and associated
incidents or complaints from the public.
Indicators of performance were not identified yet but most probably they will mainly consist in qualitative measures like
feedback from stakeholders and from regular users of the area, eg. Rates of frequentation, satisfaction of the users
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VLM
Cathemgoed
It is intended to be green space for the village. Currently it is only farm land but in five years time there will be a walking route,
play areas, and good gardens. It will become a space used by people. The only proposed performance measure is to count the
number of users/who live in the village.
VRS
VRS can only measure performance in relation to the implementation of the industrial heritage route. Those ‘AMVs’ (the
informal groups referred to at the beginning) have expectations that VRS cannot fulfil. They want to get ownership of buildings
Industrial Heritage Route and create new uses there. To do so they would need at least €1m and would need to convince the local authority to get
(Fils Valley)
public money, to realise the project, to get ownership of the buildings and to implement new uses. Their success can only be
judged on those criteria. Several of the municipalities will implement information and recreation places (industry-culture
islands) along the river to enhance the Industrial Heritage Route. The number of realized industry-culture islands can be
measured. The municipalities will be responsible for their maintenance.
Stakeholders
Right and Responsibilities
Amersfoort
Park Randenbroek
Participation groups who were involved in the design of the park, were also involved in the maintenance consequences of it.
Water Board Management for maintenance of rivers. These are largely professional stakeholders. There have been some
groups of inhabitants/civilians who have organised themselves around specific issues related to the management and
maintenance of the park, but once issues have been dealt with these voluntary stakeholders end their involvement.
Community Forest Trust
McDonald’s
Meanwhile
Community Food Growing
Project
It was more about inviting everybody who wanted to involved. Rights and responsibilities were not formally decided, it was a
more organic process whereby people who were happy to take on key tasks did so. It has been a voluntary process rather than
people necessarily identifying what people should do. It is a more flexible structure and depends on the members. The longer
term objective is to establish a more formal structure with agreed roles and responsibilities.
SYFP/SCC
Edward Street Park
AMEY, Sheffield Homes, ZEST (who are not indeed a stakeholder anymore because of budget cuts). There are also local
businesses quite close by, again friend of groups, we had a couple of meetings, they are interested in. there is not a written
agreement with them, only highways. Unwritten rules. It is a very flexible structure, it can change in the future.
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Ville de Liege
La Chartreuse
-
VLM
Cathemgoed
VRS
Industrial Heritage Route
(Fils Valley)
The local authority – it’s the key actor of the AMV, providing for most of the area management services (hard
investment works, ecological maintenance of the vegetation, soft services like communication)
The NPO ‘La Chartreuse’, which is responsible for the maintenance of the Arvo building and organisers regular site
visits
Volunteers and various types of stakeholders who spontaneously provide complementary services (mainly cleaning
services, organisation of environment, sports of cultural activities and visits)
There are people who are involved in doing the plans, and a key objective is to keep them involved over the duration of the
project. “Little by little, we can go on and make them own the project.” But currently the only activity is attempts to buy the
land, which means these people meet less regularly.
-
The ‘friends of’ groups who are mostly private individuals, actively engaged, interested and well educated people
aged 50+.
City planners working in the municipalities, mayors and city councils.
The ‘friends of’ groups have said that local administration and politicians are the most important stakeholders,
because without their support they can’t change anything or implement ideas.
Detailed Structure
Amersfoort
Park Randenbroek
The design and the maintenance level are planned in parallel sessions. The maintenance programme is in total tendered
together with the investment. So the contractor knows his responsibilities via written rules in the contract. But in general, if
we make agreements with bodies about maintenance, it is always via written rules in Holland
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Community Forest Trust
McDonald’s
Meanwhile
Community Food Growing
Project
For the McDonald’s site, the AMV structure is very informal what we do have is a site user agreement which sets out what is
expected by AMV members , what they need to do as a minimum requirement and what they are not allowed to do on the
site.. So the Site User Agreement is quite a formal structure to guide how the site can be used but for that group there is not a
formal committee. Also they are told if they want to do anything different they need to get the permission of the franchisee
that runs the McDonald’s restaurant, effectively the tenant of the site, because she is subleasing that site to the community.
So they will need to go through this formal process to get her permission. Likewise because the site is leased from the Council,
there is a lease (formal and legal) detailing what can and cannot be done on the site. So this is an additional layer of control
which the AMV have to follow.
SYFP/SCC
Edward Street Park
The formal agreement is between SCC and AMEY for the highway maintenance. There is a letter of understanding between
SCC and Sheffield homes, and then hopefully with the friends group if we get them set up to act as a guide to AMV and they
get the terms of reference setup about the structures. Hopefully there will be a strong central point of contact to
communicate with the other stakeholders.
Ville de Liege
La Chartreuse
The AMV is chaired by municipality and the most important part of the AM is in the legal responsibility of municipality. The
municipality organises the communication and coordination. Private developers –planning to construct 500 dwellings inside
the Fort of La Chartreuse could contribute financially to the AMV on the voluntary basis. Local NPO will probably look after the
park, clean it up, organizes visits on a voluntary basis , so no legal and financial agreement is needed)
VLM
Cathemgoed
“We do lots of things informal, talking to those people. I cannot say friends, but people talking to each other rather than
people from government. That is good way to communicate or convince them.
We need to buy the ground and then the legal things will start. The city of Brugge has some structure plan and that is also a
formal-legal plan of the process.”
VRS
The AMVs are independent but they do not have any power. They are independent to verbalise their ideas, share their opinion
Industrial Heritage Route but they are dependent in terms of financial circumstances and in terms of public decisions because local authorities have to
(Fils Valley)
decide about the usage of certain sites. As long as the AMVs don’t find common solutions with local authorities, they can’t
realize their ideas, they can’t implement them. Two AMVs we interviewed were conducted by local authorities, by professional
facilitators or planners as a link between the AMV and local authority. That seemed to be successful at least in some aspects.
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SWOT ANALYSIS
Investment Areas
Strengths
Weaknesses
Amersfoort
Park Randenbroek
Generally in Holland a quite good service level Whenever we want to change it’s difficult because you
agreement. Most of the municipalities work have a contract.
with visual site visits and checks.
Not easy to break the contact of the company goes for
bankruptcy.
Contracts mostly depends on five years maximum, but
then you have a group that maintain quite well but after
5 or 10 years we have to tender the job again and
sometimes another company gets the tender because of
lower price offer and then we lose the specific know how
of the terrain and specialties in the maintenance.
Community Forest Trust
Its strength is its informality. Having an
McDonald’s Meanwhile Community Food informal AMV means more people are likely to
Growing Project
get involved
and carry out the practical
hands on work as they are more interested in
this than the more formal committee based
work such as chairing meetings, taking
minutes or looking after the accounts
There is no formal structure there, I suppose a lot of
decision making is made up on an informal democratic
basis by whole of the group. However, certain dominant
individuals have made decisions without getting the
agreement of the other members of the group.
SYFP/SCC
Edward Street Park
If city regeneration was not around, then things may
have fallen apart again. Sheffield housing would have
been the only voice. They have a different view. City
regeneration is more about the quality of the space.
Sheffield housing’s concern is to push to cost down. So if
things in the park break or wear out, they may replace
them with cheap materials, city regeneration aims to
push the quality up.
Its cost efficiency. There is no admin cost, or
big legal cost for the local community or the
group because the council is responsible of
this.
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Ville de Liege
La Chartreuse
The informal arrangement is likely to support It does not contribute to empower the other
existing and future initiatives, engage stakeholders than the municipality
passionate people. The string and central role
of the municipality will ensure a minimum
level of management of the area.
VLM
Cathemgoed
In this way, everybody can talk, even the
young people made suggestions in the plan.
Everybody could say what they want without
making a fight.
If there is a close relationship between AMV
and local authority, it can be successful,
especially when they share the same targets.
It takes time and passion.
Investment Areas
Opportunities
Threats
Amersfoort
Park Randenbroek
Sometimes we are working with companies Every contractor tries to cut down the budget to make
that have contracts with other cities for profit. We are not really able to tender with a lower
maintenance. So sometimes they can come up amount of money for maintenance of the same quality.
with solutions they have tried elsewhere, we
did not think about. They are learning
elsewhere and transfer their knowledge. That
is the opportunity we get.
Also, in our contacts there is a rule that the
contractors must do 5% social return of their
contract.
VRS
Industrial Heritage Route (Fils Valley)
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A flexible structure is a weakness. Changing of members
or important contact persons is another weakness. The
more conflicts between AMV and local authority arise,
informal structures are the weaker organisational form of
AMVs.
Community Forest Trust
There are 2 options available for the food
McDonald’s Meanwhile Community Food growers: they take on a formal structure, or
Growing Project
they can carry on as they are. ”I would want
them take on a more formal structure,
because I won’t be able to support them
forever. Having years of experience, I think
the benefit of a forming an organised group is
that they will learn a new set of skills which
will be good for personal development,
potentially improve employability and enable
the group to secure funding to deliver more
improvements to their food growing space.”
SYFP/SCC
Edward Street Park
Ville de Liege
La Chartreuse
VLM
Cathemgoed
The City Council, which owns the site may eventually
want to develop the space which would mean that the
AMV will no longer exist. However, if this does happen all
the project partners will work together to find a new
space for the food growers to move to. The other threat
is because there are some strong willed individuals in the
AMV this may cause conflict and result in members of the
food growing group leaving.
New working relations with the groups Things may fall apart, different objectives. AMEY PFI, as
involved, and friends of group is a real with lots of PFI work, it’s alright at the beginning but PFI
opportunity
sells on the contract and the quality of work might be
worse in 5-10 years of time. The description of the work
is on contract, but knowing some of the PFI’s work, you
can see the quality is worse.
The development of a new housing area in Everything relies on the municipality. So what if the
the north part of the park could be the municipality fails in the organisation of the “Chartreuse
opportunity to create a win-win cooperation steering committee’s annual meetings or in the follow-up
with the private developers
the ambassadors?
We learn about participation
-
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VRS
Industrial Heritage Route (Fils Valley)
Ideas and initiatives from local people can
support the municipalities to find good
solutions for abandoned industrial heritage
buildings.
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Local groups rely on the one hand on the municipality
and its will to support them and on the other hand on the
property owners who normally want to make as much
profit as possible which often means to demolish
historical buildings.
LESSONS LEARNED
Amersfoort: The parallel process of design and maintenance works very well. About 15 years ago we
didn’t work so explicitly in this way. Then there was first a design, then the investment and then the
maintenance. So the maintenance was mostly independent from the design process in GI.
Now it is impossible not to think of maintenance when we are designing a project. It makes the
process more expensive and more complex but in this way it is more sustainable. This is an
important lesson we have learned.
SYFP/SCC: There were a lot of objections from Sheffield Homes, saying that, it will cost them a lot to
maintain. Even some of the residents were asking why we are doing the park…but after it is finished;
they came and said, “glad it is here…it is a safe area now.” You have to convince people, even it is an
open scape. In this part of the world. local authority budgets are under huge pressure from national
government, which seeks to cut costs and taxes. The costs-side of the CBA equation seems to drive
everything, to the detriment of value, quality and benefit at different scales. Edward St, with the
help of the EU/Interreg has delivered great results despite this very difficult context.
CFT: For the first year of the McDonald’s project there will be an informal structure for the AMV, but
after that we will aim to introduce a more formal structure to enable a more democratic process
for decision making, where a group consensus is needed for any new proposals for the site. I think I
should have made it clear to the food growers from the very start as, ultimately, that is what I want
to see, but my concern was, I didn’t want to scare people off. There needs to be more structure,
more organization, and more accountability.
VDL: It is important from the beginning, to think about the concrete objectives of area management,
to explain them better to the local community and to think about measures of performance. Some
stakeholders might be opposed to reconsidering the actual division or roles and responsibilities for
public space management.
VLM: You have to listen to everybody who knows, uses the place. They live in this place and know a
lot about the space. That is the best way to start to make plans.
VRS: It is very hard to get people involved. If they get engaged the catalyst often is already strong
irritation about the existing situation. This is not the best condition for a positive and successful
cooperation with the municipality.
If the AMV can’t convince the local authority nothing will happen. In the end everything depends on
persuasive power – and on money. In Germany this usually means public money.
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Conclusion: cross cutting themes in the assessment of AMVs
Many of the AMVs are at an early stage of their development, and hence it is difficult to make an
assessment of whether they have delivered on the two objectives of WP4, which were:
-
To use enterprising partnerships to deliver greater sustainability, efficiency and
opportunity in the provision of services and amenities
-
To establish flexible and innovative structures that maintain long-term engagement and
bridge the gaps between different sectors and departments.
However, each AMV has made progress towards the development of partnerships that have flexible
and innovative structures, with a focusing on long-term citizen engagement that can bridge gaps
between sectors and departments. Each AMV has adopted different strategies to pursue this goal, in
accordance with the character and context in which they operate. This section describes the
progress AMVs have made towards the development of their partnerships, highlighting the
important interrelations between character and context, aims, objectives and performance
measures, and the stakeholders and structure of AMVs.
Character and context
As discussed in other WP4 outputs (notably 4A10.6), the political, legal, social and economic
contexts of each country are significant in shaping the form and functioning of the AMVs. This is best
illustrated by the context in Belgium, where national conventions around the legal responsibility of
local municipalities for public space management dictate a more formalised top-down approach,
particularly compared to the emerging AMVs in countries such as the UK where community
management is politically encouraged. This, however, is not an absolute, as the evolution of
stakeholder behaviours and context of particular investment sites may encourage new forms of
AMV, as seen in Liége. Furthermore, even where it is politically encouraged, it is not always well
resourced in the form of grants from national government (all too often, local groups and thirdsector NGOs are very dependent on small, fluctuating pots of revenue and charitable donations).
In addition, an important consideration in AMV design relates to the geographic scale at which area
management occurs. The initial actors who identify and respond to local needs are likely to have a
large influence on the AMV’s overall form and objectives, but may also encounter particular
opportunities or difficulties related to the geographic scale at which they are operating. Some
initiatives, which can be described as more ‘bottom-up’, have had more of a role in determining the
initial character of the AMV than in countries where area management is usually organised on more
of a top-down basis. However, in different cases they may also encounter difficulties in attracting
and retaining local volunteers and in accessing resources to operate and maintain investment sites.
Those AMVs that have emerged from a wider geographic scale, usually at the level of a regional
municipality, seem to utilise experience and efficiencies to develop and maintain investment sites,
but may struggle to empower a wider group of stakeholders in the decision-making of the AMV.
This is not to say that one scale is preferable to another, but that actors initiating AMVs will need to
monitor and evolve their AMV design in relation to the wider character and context, as well as to the
interests and engagement of local stakeholders, economic viability, and resource availability. This
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consideration of character and context should in turn feed into the formulation of aims and
objectives, and appropriate performance measures.
Performance measures
Each AMV was asked for their aims and objectives and the measures of performances used to
measure their activity. There is a breadth of aims and objectives across the AMVs, varying in their
specificity. The more specific the objective, the more clear measures of performance can be. For
instance, in Amersfoort there are a number of ‘hard’ quantitative performance measures in relation
to the monitoring of environmental standards and biodiversity. Performance in this regard may be
easier to assess.
AMVs listed a number of objectives that are social in nature and perhaps less specific. Some AMVs
have objectives related to levels of citizen participation in projects, satisfaction of users, and desires
to instigate behavioural change amongst local people. Yet, these can be complex objectives to
measure, and consequently performance measures are not always well developed. While economic
and environmental indicators may be easy to assess, because standardised data can be collected,
there is more complexity around the social indicators of performance. For instance, what constitutes
a ‘success’ in measuring citizen participation? This may be measured in different ways, according to
the varied degrees and levels of formality of citizen engagement in AMVs. Many AMVs may seek to
increase the number of people engaged in area management, but it may be that where sites only
include a small number of citizens, the quality and effectiveness of their participation may be more
important than a simple count of people using that space. Furthermore, this is interrelated with the
context in which the AMV is operating, and success in increasing citizen participation may be
considered in relation to local norms and how easy or difficult it may have previously been to engage
people in these specific areas.
It may also be the case that the aims and objectives are not aligned with the character, context and
initiation of the AMV, nor with the measures of performance that have been identified. This may be
due to the fact that many of the AMVs discussed here are in the early stages, but we can identify
instances - such as Zeebrugge - where representation and inclusiveness has been identified as a key
objective, but that this has not been built into the initial organisation and development of the AMV.
This identifies an important learning point for AMVs, in that a visioning process that considers the
internal consistency and coherence of, and interrelations between, their character and context, aims
and objectives, and the performance measures by which their organisational form and function will
be measured. As discussed next, the aims and objectives also need to be aligned to what can
realistically be achieved through the chosen structure and stakeholder leadership of the AMV.
Stakeholders and Structures
The identification of stakeholders for AMVs is usually based on the character and context in which
the AMV operates, such as the social and cultural norms for area management, as well as on the
basis of which groups have an existing relationship to the investment site.
The involvement of local authorities is a cross-cutting theme across the AMVS, often because the
investment site had been in their ownership, though there are key differences in how this is
operationalised. Some seek to reduce their stake in the AMV over time, as in the case of Sheffield
where key elements of area management have been contracted out and a community asset transfer
had been considered, while others are likely to retain a prominent stakeholder role. It is also clear
from the investments that AMVs need certain degrees of support and guidance to establish both
their initial roles and responsibilities, and to support their longer-term social and economic
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sustainability. Local authorities may be key here, as well as external enablers and the support that
comes with being part of an EU/Interreg project that provides peer-to-peer learning opportunities.
The involvement of citizens varies across the AMVs, though all have structures that enable gaps to
be bridged between different sectors and departments. The idea that those located nearest the site
should be engaged, including local resident populations, was a prominent theme, but different levels
of engagement are observed. In Manchester, we can see a focus on citizen decision-making, while
sites in Belgium were keen to have elements of inclusiveness, but do not go as far as permitting
citizens to have direct democratic control or decision-making powers. The details of citizen
involvement in area management can therefore contrast sharply between investment sites. Those
that have more advanced plans for devolution of responsibility, or greater commitment to this
articulated in their aims, tend to be based in nations where citizen involvement in area management
is common. This, however, does not mean that transfer of responsibilities to the public is
straightforward. Cost efficiencies and resource dependencies or limitations can act as a hindrance,
as observed in the cases of Sheffield and Stuttgart. Even in areas where the legal and social
conventions are not historically supportive of public participation in area management, some AMVs
have plans to ensure citizens representation and inclusion in the AMV in the future. However, there
is often no identified practical method or timetable for doing so, and as described above it may be
the case that this desire is not included in early visioning processes.
The formality of AMV structures is fluid within AMVs, and may evolve over time to respond to the
completion of original aims and objectives, or in response to changing funding and legal structures.
Those that have higher levels of citizen participation tend to have fairly informal structures, in part
to encourage leadership and engagement on the terms of citizens themselves, though it is often
recognised that progress to a more formal structure may be necessary for the sustainability and
funding of the AMV (as in the case of Manchester).
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