Communities across the North East have long been shaped by solidarity, collective action, and a deep sense of place. Yet decades of deindustrialisation, policy shifts, and fragmented investment have weakened many of the social foundations that once sustained local democracy and shared prosperity.
Join us on Thursday 12th March 2026 in Durham for From The Ground Up, a knowledge exchange summit that will bring together community organisations, funders, local authorities, social investors, and researchers to explore how power, resources, and decision-making can be genuinely devolved to residents - and how we sustain that shift for the long term.
Hosted in Durham’s historic Redhills, the former Miners’ Parliament, the day blends heritage, lived experience, research, and practical action. Through panels, workshops, and collective reflection, participants will co-create practical frameworks, investment ideas, and policy insights that can be taken forward across the region.
This is not a traditional conference. It is a working space for learning, connection, and commitment - grounded in the North East’s past, and focused firmly on its future.
Opening Plenary
Welcome - Rachel Rowney, CEO of Local Trust
The day will open with a warm welcome and introduction from Rachel, who has been part of the team at Local Trust responsible for delivering the Big Local programme since 2012. Designed from the outset to be radically different from other funding programmes, at the heart of Big Local is a vision of community development that champions resilient, dynamic, asset-rich neighbourhoods, making their own decisions on what is best for their area.
Prior to Local Trust Rachel worked on the delivery and evaluation of a range of neighbourhood renewal programmes, including New Deal for Communities, Neighbourhood Management pathfinders, Single Regeneration Budget and Total Place.
Rachel will give an overview of the day's agenda and the purpose of the event.
North East History and Heritage - Youth Perspective from Jack Burton, Artistic Director and Sustainability Officer of Jack Drum Arts
Growing up in a small former mining village in the early 1990s, Jack connected to the region’s rich cultural heritage through creative and cultural opportunities, most memorably the performances of folk duo Bob Fox and Benny Graham. The songs, stories, and traditions that grew such pride and connection in his formative years still resonate with him today, and he is delighted to be supporting new groups of young people to engage with the past, present and future through creativity.
Jack will be sharing his reflections on the region's proud local democracy, tracing it from the miners' heritage to the present day.
Performance - Nordestinos
We're delighted to be joined by Nordestinos, a group that fuses the musical and dance traditions of North East England with those of North East Brazil, who will be performing for us. Their work is rooted in the celebration of local heritage, community involvement, collaboration, and cultural exchange, bringing together professional artists and people of all ages and abilities to create something unique, powerful, and deeply moving.
Panel Discussions
The North East's decline in community and solidarity can be attributed to a complex interplay of economic shifts, urban planning, and technological changes. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for revitalising a sense of unity and shared purpose in the region.
We will be joined by a range of experts for two thought provoking panels during the morning, setting important context for the workshops that follow.
Co-creating a Shared Stewardship Framework for Community Assets in the North East
This panel discussion focuses on the future of community hubs and local assets in the North East, exploring how ownership, governance, and funding can better share power, responsibility, and risk. We will examine whether conditions are shifting to support genuine shared stewardship, moving beyond short-term, fragile models towards sustainable, community-led approaches. Drawing on lived experience, the discussion will look at what co-design, co-ownership, and co-commissioning means in practice, the true cost of running community spaces well, and how investment and commissioning can support long-term community wellbeing.
Lucy Thurley
Local Trust
Lucy works as Senior Programme Coordinator (areas) for Local Trust.
Lucy has worked with and for communities for over 20 years and has a background in creative practice. She has created high impact projects that have local relevance, and is committed to collaborative practices that democratically involve a broad range of voices and stakeholders in decision making.
Patrick Melia
Sunderland City Council
Patrick Melia is Chief Executive of Sunderland City Council.
David Carnaffan
North Tyneside Big Local
David Carnaffan has worked as Chief Executive of North Tyneside Big Local (formerly Whitley Bay Big Local) since 2020. He has worked in the voluntary sector for almost 20 years, including 11 years as a funder and a further 9 years for delivery organisations. A member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising, David has developed expertise in applying for funding to trusts and foundations, but takes a particular interest in different approaches taken by charities to achieve financial and environmental sustainability.
Alongside his day job, David is also chair of a grassroots community organisation in his home-town of North Shields.
John Tomaney
UCL
John Tomaney is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and Pro-Provost (Regional Communities at University College London.
John is also a Trustee of Sacriston Youth Project.
Beyond Quick Wins: The Power of Patient, People-Led Investment
This panel will explore how long-term, resident-led investment can replace short-term, compliance-driven funding to support sustainable, locally owned change in the North East. Drawing on learning from the Big Local programme and IVAR research, it examines how funders, public institutions, and communities can share power, embrace appropriate risk, and provide patient, flexible support. The discussion highlights the importance of time, trust, and infrastructure in building community wealth, strengthening local leadership, and reducing reliance on public services, setting the context for the workshops that follow.
Dr Jo Brown
The Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR)
Dr Jo Brown is Deputy Director of Research at The Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR). She has over ten years of experience in health, homelessness, disability, and social policy research, blending academic expertise with applied practice. She specialises in inclusive and participatory research, guiding IVAR’s range of action research, evaluation, and learning projects. Prior to joining IVAR, she led Groundswell’s participatory research programme, working to reduce health inequalities and ensuring the voices of people experiencing homelessness influenced policy and services.
Jo will be co-hosting this panel with Houda Davis.
Houda Davis
The Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR)
Houda is a Senior Researcher at IVAR, with fifteen years’ experience in leading complex projects across the voluntary, funding and public sectors.
Houda will be co-hosting this panel with Dr Jo Brown.
Martin Brookes
VONNE
Prior to joining VONNE as Chief Executive, Martin has worked in major organisations in all three sectors - public, private and charitable; initially as a professional economist, then as an analyst and chief executive in charities.
During 20 years working in and with charities, he has played a leading role in articulating the importance of strategy and impact. He has built the market-leading New Philanthropy Capital and also co-founded the influential Pro Bono Economics, helping to change thinking and practice across the charitable sector through his understanding of markets and finance.
Victoria Hughes
Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Victoria Hughes is an Associate Director in Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Emerging Futures team, leading JRF’s regional work in York and the wider North East to support changemakers building more just, equitable futures beyond poverty. She works alongside communities and local partners to imagine and grow radical new approaches to tackling poverty and inequality, drawing on a background in social research and senior roles in public policy and strategy.
Victoria is also a trustee of Redhills CIO in Durham, home of the historic “Pitmen’s Parliament”, reflecting her deep connection to the region’s mining heritage and commitment to just, green transitions.
Nathan Hopkins
Woodshed Workshop
Nathan Hopkins is the Manging Director of Woodshed Workshop, a community interest company based in Durham.
Rachel Rowney
Local Trust
Rachel is the CEO of Local Trust and has been part of the team responsible for delivering the Big Local programme since 2012. Big Local has enabled 150 areas across England to create lasting change in their neighbourhoods over 10 to 15 years, through grants of just over £1m each.
Prior to Local Trust, Rachel worked on the delivery and evaluation of a range of neighbourhood renewal programmes, including New Deal for Communities, Neighbourhood Management pathfinders, Single Regeneration Budget and Total Place.
Workshops
The afternoon will consist of 4 workshop sessions running parallel to each other, and attendees will join a different session over 2 rounds. Upon event registration, attendees are invited to rate which workshops they would like to attend in order of preference. Wherever possible, you will be allocated your first 2 choices if spaces are available.
Each themed interactive workshop will be led by experienced facilitators, with the ultimate goal being to co-create tools and frameworks that support community power and resilience.
Devolving Power in Practice
This workshop explores what it really means to devolve power to communities, moving beyond consultation towards genuine shared decision-making. Drawing on learning from the Big Local programme and lived experience from residents, practitioners, and organisations, it focuses on the practical realities of shifting power.
Participants will examine power dynamics, accountability, trust, and ways of working that enable residents to shape decisions affecting their lives and places. Working in mixed groups, they will identify challenges, test assumptions, and explore what needs to change to support authentic co-decision rather than tokenistic involvement.
Barbara Slasor
Gaunless Gateway Big Local
Barbara Slasor has over 23 years’ experience working in community development and has spent the last eight years supporting resident-led decision-making through Big Local. As Community Development Lead, she worked alongside residents who held long-term control over £1.15 million, supporting them to set priorities, make difficult trade-offs, and take responsibility for real decisions about resources.
Barbara’s experience comes from working inside systems where power was genuinely shared, trust was built through action, and leadership emerged through practice rather than theory. She now supports communities and organisations to reflect on what meaningful power shift demands in reality.
Kelly Potts
Roseworth Big Local
Kelly Potts has 18 years’ experience’ working with some of the most deprived communities in England. Her journey began delivering community adult education. After a decade in further education she realised so much more needed to be done (you can’t focus on the “bloom” stuff until you take care of the “Maslow” stuff). That insight led her to embed more deeply in communities. Since then she has founded community organisations and supported community led groups from conception to sustainability.
She is passionate about change, committed to empowering communities, building collective action and creating systems that embed lasting community led change.
Investing in Capacity, Confidence & Leadership
Across communities, there is growing recognition that devolving power and shared stewardship will only succeed if residents are supported to build the confidence, skills, and leadership needed to exercise that power meaningfully. This workshop focuses on the human infrastructure that underpins thriving communities, bringing together community development stakeholders to explore the capabilities residents need to participate, lead, and influence — and how these can be intentionally developed over time.
Aligned with the Devolving Power in Practice and Shared Stewardship workshops, the session examines the competencies required for residents to move from engagement to co-decision and shared responsibility. Drawing on lived experience, practice insight, and system-level perspectives, participants will identify priority capabilities, barriers to inclusion, and the conditions that enable learning to translate into real influence. The outcome will inform a future commissioning brief to pilot learning opportunities that strengthen resident leadership, confidence, and long-term community stewardship.
Prof. Azadeh Fatehrad
Teesside University
photo by Claire Collinson
Azadeh Fatehrad is an artist and researcher who has spent over a decade working alongside migrant, refugee, and local communities to make change from the ground up. Through participatory art, storytelling, and place-based projects, she supports residents to share knowledge, build confidence, and shape decisions about their neighbourhoods. Her work focuses on shifting power- training community researchers, co-designing projects, and connecting lived experience with local councils and grassroots organisations.
Azadeh is Professor of Art and Public Policy at Teesside University and leads Inclusive and Empowered Places at the Institute for Collective Place Leadership.
Measuring What Matters: Redefining Success & Evaluation
This interactive workshop invites participants to move beyond traditional evaluation and explore learning as a more useful way of understanding change in complex community settings. Grounded in trust-based learning, it treats communities, charities, and funders as partners in making sense of change, with a focus on power-building, agency, and community cohesion — including the early, often intangible shifts that matter most to communities.
Combining light framing with hands-on group work, participants will work with stories and lived experience to identify signals of growing community power and develop learning questions that support reflection and adaptation over time. Facilitated by Dr Jo Brown and Houda Davis from the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR), the session offers practical ideas for reframing evaluation as a shared learning process and for identifying and making sense of change in more meaningful ways.
Dr Jo Brown
The Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR)
Dr Jo Brown is Deputy Director of Research at The Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR). She has over ten years of experience in health, homelessness, disability, and social policy research, blending academic expertise with applied practice. She specialises in inclusive and participatory research, guiding IVAR’s range of action research, evaluation, and learning projects.
Prior to joining IVAR, she led Groundswell’s participatory research programme, working to reduce health inequalities and ensuring the voices of people experiencing homelessness influenced policy and services.
Houda Davis
The Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR)
Houda is a Senior Researcher at IVAR, with fifteen years’ experience in leading complex projects across the voluntary, funding and public sectors.
Co-creating a Shared Stewardship Framework for Community Assets in the North East
Across the North East, community venues and locally rooted projects play a vital role in wellbeing, prevention, and neighbourhood life, yet many are precariously sustained through short-term funding and limited capacity. This fragility puts at risk the spaces communities rely on most.
This workshop explores shared stewardship as an alternative approach to the ownership, governance, and commissioning of community assets. It looks at collaborative models where communities, public bodies, funders, and anchor organisations share responsibility — securing spaces for the long term, unlocking investment, and combining community purpose with institutional resources.
Bringing together practitioners, decision-makers, and community leaders, the session will explore how co-design, co-ownership, and co-stewardship can strengthen social infrastructure. Participants will contribute to shaping a practical principles framework for shared stewardship, grounded in lived experience and collective ambition.
Lucy Thurley
Local Trust
Lucy works as Senior Programme Coordinator (areas) for Local Trust.
Lucy has worked with and for communities for over 20 years and has a background in creative practice. She has created high impact projects that have local relevance, and is committed to collaborative practices that democratically involve a broad range of voices and stakeholders in decision making.
John Tomaney
UCL
John Tomaney is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and Pro-Provost (Regional Communities at University College London.
John is also a Trustee of Sacriston Youth Project.
Closing Plenary
Conclusion - Martin Brookes, Chief Executive of VONNE
To round off the day, we will hear feedback from this afternoon's workshops, support collective reflection and highlight what the next steps will be, including pledges for joint action.
We're also excited to be able to share with you the launch of the Learning from Big Local website.
