BEACH PARTNERSHIP

BEACH (Blackburn East Area Community Help) Partnership is a community umbrella organisation, established in 1996, made up of a number of separate and independent community groups which originated from the East part of Blackburn. The purpose of this community umbrella organisation is to try to ‘make things better’ initially in East Blackburn but also in other areas. In aid of this a comprehensive community survey to establish the issues that communities agree need to be addressed has been carried out and the key issues fed into the town’s Regeneration Plan.

BEACH Partnership holds conferences and Capacity Building events, secures funding, develops projects, facilitates a Community Forum and where appropriate works to deliver projects in partnership with other agencies. To help this Beach Partnership Ltd, a social enterprise ‘not for profit’ company, has been formed to enable Beach Partnership deliver projects on behalf of member groups and organisations. These member groups are ‘Stake Holders’ in the company and hold the Company Directors to account for what the company does.

The following are examples of Beach Partnership project work: 3 new ball courts (football, basketball, cricket) built 3 new children’s recreation facilities built bowling greens refurbished youth intervention project working with young people on the ‘margins of society’ to achieve a more positive life work to facilitate and establish a community garden in conjunction with St Teresa’s Roman Catholic Church which own the site and many other partners to carry out the work helping Residents and Tenants set up their own Community Associations. This work has brought approximately £3m worth of investment to the area that may not have otherwise occurred. BEACH Partnership also helped to set up BEACH Sporting Club as a separate stand alone organisation with the remit to provide a range of sporting activities for the young people of East Blackburn and other areas. At present BEACH Sporting Club provides Judo and Football and has aspirations to expand into other sports as and when the opportunity occurs. BEACH Sporting Club is a member of BEACH Partnership.

BEACH Partnership, working in partnership with many agencies, was instrumental in winning and delivering the DfES ‘Wired Up Communities’ project in East Blackburn installing and commissioning 2,500 computers in local households. Those participating in this project were provided with ICT learning opportunities and as a result many local people have become more confident and capable of using a computer and obtaining and using information. Blackburn College stated that they experienced a 10 fold increase in people from East Blackburn participating in courses of various sorts as a direct result of this project and it has been reported that others were able to obtain jobs because of the new skills they learned through the Wired Up Communities project.

This BEonline neighbourhood community website has been established which local groups can use to establish their own web page and learn web editing skills. Further work is underway to build on this to help build better connected and more cohesive communities in which to live, work and play.

Should your group like to become a member or find out more about the work of BEACH Partnership, BEACH Partnership Forum, BEACH Sporting Club or Beach Partnership Ltd please contact Derek Estill on 01254 852804 or by email at dm.estill@tiscali.co.uk