09/10/2026
On 26 June, we welcomed representatives from Sheffield’s voluntary and community sectors to the Circle and invited them to take part in a unique exercise. We looked at neighbourhoods across the city and asked them to select a starting set to invest in, as a demonstrator for what new forms of neighbourhood democracy might look like.
This followed on from our earlier sandbox exercise, held with a smaller group of people already involved in Sheffield Transition Financing (STF). In that workshop, we explored how and where we could start supporting Neighbourhood Conversations in the city, as a first stepping stone towards local decision-making and governance of Neighbourhood Funds.
We gained really valuable insights from the first group, and were keen to expand on this with a larger group. Our second group was made up of people from a wider range of organisations across Sheffield – some very local, some city-wide – who were mostly new to STF.
We encouraged our participants to think about two questions:
▪️ What should we be looking for in our starting set of neighbourhoods?
▪️ How do the many neighbourhoods of Sheffield sit within that framework?
The big challenge has been the breadth of information we need to consider to fully engage with these questions.
We’re using Citizen Network and Data for Action's neighbourhood map of Sheffield, which frames the city as being made up of neighbourhoods of roughly 4,000 to 5,000 people. We’ve already shared why we think that's a valuable way of thinking about Sheffield. That means there are 147 neighbourhoods in Sheffield, and each one has an enormous depth of character, history, needs, strengths, and energy – and it’s all changing constantly.
How can any one group hold all of that complexity, and use it to create a portfolio of ‘starter neighbourhoods’ that reflect the ambition and potential of the city?
Continue reading on the Opus Blog ⤵️
On 26 June, we welcomed representatives from Sheffield’s voluntary and community sectors to the Circle and invited them to take part in a unique exercise. We looked at neighbourhoods across the city and asked them to select a starting set to invest in, as a demonstrator for what new forms of neigh...
