Southey Owlerton Area Regeneration (SOAR)

The process of developing a strong, community-led framework for long-term regeneration in north Sheffield shows a genuine commitment to design quality.

Around 10% of Sheffield’s population live in the predominantly residential area covered by the Southey Owlerton Area Regeneration (SOAR) partnership.  The long-term strategy for this large part of the city emerged through creative engagement with local communities. It has allowed local people to have a strong voice in how public investment is used in their area and to link individual projects with spatial frameworks at the neighbourhood and area-wide scale.

CABE helped Sheffield City Council set up a dedicated design panel to support the SOAR partnership in 2002.  We helped draw up the terms of reference and four of our enablers were appointed to the panel. As the programme developed, design quality emerged as a key priority for the successful regeneration of the area.

How CABE enabling helped

• invited and funded four experienced enablers to join the SOAR panel
• worked with community representatives and SOAR officers to give them the skills to participate in briefing, evaluation and selection processes
• advised Sheffield City Council and SOAR on briefing and appointments
• helped SOAR draw up robust but accessible and communicable frameworks and masterplans for physical interventions
• helped secure good design outcomes for demonstration projects
• helped embed the experience of the SOAR panel in the emerging Transform South Yorkshire Delivering Design Quality programme.

Commenting later on the experience of working with CABE, the SOAR project manager felt that, “CABE became recognised and trusted by the community,” and a community client group member commended the enablers for being “able to get across sophisticated messages in a clear and positive way”.