Wolverhampton: Trust and community in Wednesfield
Jay Baso supporting the City of Wolverhampton Shop Local campaign 2021 © courtesy Jay Baso
Co-delivery and transparency to build back trust
Jay Baso is a business owner in Wednesfield, a historic town north-east of Wolverhampton city centre. He is a spirited and active member of his local community and has been the driving force behind closer collaboration, deeper engagement and a successful co-delivery approach between the business community in Wednesfield and the City of Wolverhampton Council.
Together they have co-delivered the targeted £150K in accelerated funding Wolverhampton received part of the Towns Fund, increased transparency of decision making and built trust between them along the way.
Restoring positivity and prosperity within the community
“There's three things in life that I always believe in: respect, morals and manners. If you've got them all, well, I've got both feet in,” he says about his commitment to working with others in the community to make improvements to the Town.
Jay has campaigned for investment into Wednesfield for years, so when funds were allocated through Wolverhampton’s Town Deal, Jay seized the opportunity to mobilise his community, create a more positive outlook about the Town and rebuild trust with the council. He was set on countering some of the negative views circulating on social media, with the aim of attracting people back to the area and ultimately, attracting further investment.
“When you're hearing about crime happening on the High Street, it's scaring people and deterring them from coming back,” says Jay.
Jay grew up in Wednesfield and the High Street and market have been important features of his life in the Town. As a child, the fruit-and-veg man would throw Jay an orange every Saturday and he had his first job on the market, sweeping up at the end of the day.
Now, as a local business owner for over 30 years, Jay has taken on the role of bringing the community of traders and business owners together to ensure the area is not left behind.
Kickstarting the conversation
“My role, which I took upon myself really, was to try and build the trust back and get the council involved as well as traders, because us small businesses are a big part of the economy,” Jay says.
Jay first brought the business community together in January 2020, concerned about what he saw circulating on social media and also motivated by the need for investment in the area. Jay and his close team set up the first meeting and Jay paid for the meeting venue and refreshments himself. Jay made sure that the key people were in the room, including councillors across all political parties, the relevant cabinet member, representatives from the city hygiene and transport teams, along with around 40 fellow traders and local business owners. Jane Stevenson, the then newly elected MP, was in attendance and has continued to be involved in the project since.
“By the end, everybody was shaking hands, hugging or talking – you know, even now I've got the hairs standing on the back of my neck when I think of it. What a good first meeting, all the characters were there,” recalls Jay.
Investing in relationships across the community
Jay's ability to build relationships on all levels and his determination to open communication between the traders and the council enabled him to play a pivotal role in the planning and delivery of the accelerated funding investment in Wednesfield.
“The relationship has been built up with the council, because I am quite straight talking in a respectful manner… it doesn't matter if I'm talking to one of the cabinet members of the council or one of the workers, because we're all human,” he says.
John Roseblade, Head of City Transport, at City of Wolverhampton Council was invited to chair the group that continued from that first meeting and he went on to deliver the accelerated funding projects for Wednesfield. By establishing genuine community engagement and involving Jay throughout, trust has been built on both sides.
John says, “Identifying an active member of the community, bringing them into the heart of the project, and being very open and transparent about how the programme was developed and delivered has been key.”
Raising confidence and community pride
Jay sees the £150K in accelerated funding as just the beginning of a much bigger jigsaw puzzle to get Wednesfield back on its feet, but hopes to prove the community’s commitment to making that happen.
“The council will look at us and think, actually they’ve worked really hard,” he says.
Jay has made sure that the accelerated funding is working hard too. The project includes a new ‘Welcome to Wednesfield’ sign and a sculpture in the roundabout, planters and resin around trees, hanging baskets, cigarette bins, CCTV cameras, new parking and stall awnings. These are all aimed at making the area more welcoming and encouraging a renewed sense of community pride. Since delivering the changes, the market stall take-up has already increased from just two regular traders to being fully booked.
Looking to the future, Jay is seeking to attract further investment into Wednesfield by continuing to build confidence and respect within the community and by working together.
Jay says, “If people respect their village, it filters down to their children and they might not drop litter, they might not drop fag-ends, they might not spray graffiti. So, as a community, that's what I'm trying to bring together.”
Success built on the foundations of persistence and compromise
Jay puts his achievements in Wednesfield down to a vital combination of persistence and compromise.
“I'm quite a vocal gentleman. I’m a thorn in people’s side, but I’m a nice thorn … I'm just persistent, and if some of this gets forgotten about, I've taken it upon myself to kindly remind people with a gentle nudge to say ‘come on’. We've actually built up a big rapport now with a lot of the council officers.”
While Jay does not shy away from making his voice and voices across his community heard, he also insists on the importance of being open to compromise.
“You've got to listen to other people's views and opinions,” he says.
As Wolverhampton moves through the Towns Fund programme into the Business Case and implementation stages, these are valuable reflections. The further challenge will be facilitating this level of engagement and co-delivery at scale.
“It's probably a very nice model in terms of engagement that can then be rolled out to further and larger projects if needed,” says John. “In terms of the pace of engagement itself, regardless of what we delivered, it was very successful in how we have gained and developed the trust of the traders. Will that be scalable? I don't know. This worked so well because it was a finite number of traders, with one very active individual talking to everybody.”
The start of something bigger
Wolverhampton secured its Town Deal of up to £25m in March 2021. After the Board’s allocation process Wednesfield has been earmarked to receive a further £2.51m Towns Fund investment. This will enable Wednesfield to lay the groundwork to unlock further investment in the area in the future. A first step is £120K allocated to develop a masterplan for the canal towpath and high street.
Jay’s personal mission is to bring positivity to the village of Wednesfield and with new investment coming into the area there is ample reason to feel positive about the future.
This story was written from conversations with Jay Baso, Business Owner, Elegant Frames and Mirrors and John Roseblade, Head of City Transport, City of Wolverhampton Council.
Wolverhampton is one of 101 places invited by the Government to develop Town Deal proposals to deliver long-term economic recovery, clean growth, jobs and prosperity as part of the £3.6 billion Towns Fund.
In September 2020, the Government brought forward £81.5m from the Towns Fund for investment in capital projects that would have an immediate impact. Wolverhampton received £1 million in additional, accelerated funding as part of this. Wolverhampton submitted a successful Town Investment Plan and secured a Town Deal of up to £25 million in March 2021. Wolverhampton is currently developing business cases to take forward their Town Deal proposals.