We can support Neighbourhood Champions to do all sorts of things, as long as they contribute towards keeping their neighbourhoods clean, safe and friendly. It’s up to you to define the ‘neighbourhood’ you want to be a champion for. It could be your whole street or estate, or just a small part - whatever you feel comfortable with.
If your street or estate is quite small, you’ll probably be able to cover the whole area. If you live on a longer road or larger estate with more households, you’ll only need to look after a small section. You can work on a larger section if you feel up to it and you might also consider seeing if you can get some neighbours to sign up too, so that between you the whole neighbourhood is covered.
Some of the things Neighbourhood Champions have already done include:
- creating community gardens
- spraying dog poo pink to send a message to irresponsible dog owners (it really works!)
- litter-picking
- putting posters up to deter litter
- setting up Facebook and WhatsApp groups for streets or estates
- organising street parties
- conducting online surveys for neighbours to say what’s important to them
- building planters to prevent fly-tipping
- putting stickers on bins to remind people to take them in after emptying
- holding Play Street events
- clearing rubbish out of alleyways
- helping elderly neighbours tidy their front garden
- cutting back overgrown hedges
You do not need to be limited to what’s in the list. We want to offer as much flexibility as possible, so you can identify the issues you want to address and find solutions that suit your neighbourhood.
If you want to do anything that involves someone else’s property, like tidying gardens or cutting back hedges, please make sure you get the owner’s permission first.
The Neighbourhood Champion handbook
We’ve written a handbook suggesting different things you can do in your neighbourhood to reduce problems like litter and dumped rubbish. You can pick and choose the activities from this handbook that you think are likely to have the biggest impact, based on your knowledge of the local area.
Neighbourhood Champions have access to a dedicated officer who will provide support and guidance whenever needed. These officers are able to provide equipment and practical help, as well as helping to access different parts of the council to solve a variety of issues.
Time commitments
How much time you put in will depend on the needs of your street and the activities you decide to do. We don’t have a strict minimum amount of time that we’d like you to put in, you’ll just need as much time as necessary to do the things you want to do. If you’re really pushed for time, you could try enlisting one or two of your neighbours to help you. We might already have contact details for other people on your street, so we could put you in touch with them.
Working with other Neighbourhood Champions
If there’s more than one Neighbourhood Champion in an area, you can spread the work between you. You’ll probably each have different skills and strengths, so if you work together you’ll be able to achieve more for your street.
We aim to set up opportunities for Neighbourhood Champions to get together if they want to. There’s also a Facebook group which you can join once you’ve registered as a Neighbourhood Champion.
Insurance
Volunteers working on behalf of the council can be treated in exactly the same way as Lambeth employees for insurance purposes, as long as they’re working under the direction of the council. This means that as long as your activities are in line with what we’re recommending as part of this project, you should be covered by the our insurance. If you want to do anything in your role as Neighbourhood Champion that you’re not sure about, you should always get in touch with us first so that we’re aware of what’s going on and can advise you. More formal community groups should usually have their own public liability insurance. We can advise you on how to go about getting it.
If you change your mind
We always encourage people to give it a try, but we realise it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. If you know someone else on your street who you think might be interested in taking over from you, you could ask them to sign up.