The Your Merton programme was Merton Council’s largest-ever resident engagement project and aimed to understand in detail how the pandemic impacted different communities, as well as ensuring that our recovery plan is built around the needs of our residents, and the changes in their priorities for the local area as a result of COVID-19.

Like many places Merton has been profoundly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Residents, communities and businesses have been impacted in different ways and are working together to recover. The pandemic has changed the way people work, study and live in Merton, so our recovery plans need to reflect those changes.

We wanted to understand the views, experiences and ambitions of local people, including residents and also those who work and study in the borough. We wanted to use the engagement exercise to understand three key things:

• Experiences of living, working and studying in the borough
• Experiences of the pandemic
• Priorities for the future.

To achieve this, we worked with Traverse to combine four separate engagement activities to involve people in different ways:

• A representative telephone survey of residents across borough undertaken by DJS Market Research
• An open access engagement website built using Commonplace
• Focus groups with 13 community groups so we could hear from those have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and more seldom heard such as disabled people, young people, people from minority ethnic communities, older people
• A two-stage deliberative workshop with 25 residents from across the borough enabled us to explore themes from the survey and engagement website in more depth.

In total, more than 5,000 views were gained, resulting in clear themes:

• People identified key local assets including our parks and green spaces and people also spoke positively about their communities and valued the community feel in their local area during the pandemic.
• Litter and cleanliness, traffic and transport came out as the biggest frustration for residents and it was a common theme across all strands of the engagement and respondent groups
• Anti-social behaviour and safety concerns were expressed by residents in parts of the borough, in particular the eastern side of Merton
• Isolation emerged strongly in the feedback from the community groups. People spoke about loneliness, isolation and depression and missing their everyday activities
• Declining high streets were commented on as a source of frustration across all forms of the engagement. In the community groups, the less mobile and digitally excluded wanted to see a wider range of local independent shops and leisure facilities

In terms of what respondents wanted to see in the future there were three key themes: revitalised high streets as a community hub where people could connect and high streets which were a source of pride and identity and a destination in themselves; maximising Merton’s green assets to serve a range of uses in future; measures which protected the environment, such as increased active travel and green transport. Addressing pollution and climate change was a top concern for young people

Future strategy – Merton 2030

People told us how important community is to them and want to see a vision for the future which brings people together. They value the diversity in our communities, want to hold onto the community spirit from the pandemic and see more places in their local area where people can come together.

This strategic approach was agreed by our Cabinet in January 2022 and will guide the council over the coming years.

About the author

Kris Witherington

Engagement and Consultation Manager at Merton Council

Kris has worked in Merton, in South West London, since 2009 having previously worked in local government policy, lottery grant funding and supported housing provision. Kris has been a member of The Consultation Institute since 2006. He can be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.