Shaping our county together

Our first event!

On Sunday 1st February, we held our first ever gathering - our Friends & Family event - to share and test out some of our ideas with our loved ones.

We have been very positively overwhelmed by the response!

We had 60 people at our beautiful venue (The Arc), a brilliant mix of all ages, wonderful kids’ contributions, heard and felt high levels of optimism and passion for shaping our county together.

Why did we do it?

One of our main reasons for hosting the event (and for setting up Future Bedfordshire Collective in the first place) is to hear what people in Bedfordshire want for our county so that we can shape our shared future together. 

If, as Future Bedfordshire Collective, we were just to decide and dictate our direction, we would miss out on a huge amount of local insights, expertise and really valuable contributions.

As community organisers, we are co-designing and co-producing our strategic objectives. Because of this, and unlike more top-down approaches, there will be some ambiguity for us to navigate together as we figure out what Bedfordians want for our county’s future.

This alternative approach to community action and local decision-making is central to why we exist and we’re really excited to see how things develop!

There are so many examples of thriving civic life across Bedfordshire already; brilliant community groups and charities, independent businesses, parish councils, independent journalism, and lots more amazing work that rarely hits the headlines.

We want to strengthen and add to Bedfordshire civic society rather than duplicating or replacing anything. We’re excited to explore what a connected future for our county could look like, so that as many people as possible can be involved, including the next generation.

What happened?

On Sunday afternoon, once we’d gotten to know each other a little better over coffee and cake, we all shared our ‘heartbreaks and hopes’ for Bedfordshire. We chatted, wrote and drew, and imagined possible future news headlines:

Encouragingly, 53% of the 175 comments people shared were hopeful.

The broad themes most frequently mentioned by people were:

1. Community & Social Fabric (21% of comments), e.g. family & children’s activities, crime & safety.

2. Economy & Employment (20% of comments), e.g. local business, jobs & investment, town centre regeneration.

3. Environment & Nature (19% of comments), e.g. biodiversity & conservation, water quality & wildlife.

4. Infrastructure & Transport (18% of comments), e.g. roads & traffic, cycling, rail.

What’s next?

We’re now thinking about how this feedback can guide our efforts to protect and champion what we already have, whilst helping to make things even better.

Most excitingly, lots of people said “I’m in!”, offering time, resources, and expertise, signing up for news about next steps (watch this space).

Some of the things we’re moving ahead with are:

• Refining our key areas of focus.

• Our Planning Party (our next event for supporters).

• Our first public event.

• And, the beginnings of OUR 100-Year Plan for Bedfordshire..

If you would like to know more, want to help or have any questions, please do get in touch with us at hello@futurebedfordshire.org