Belonging Happens Neighbourhood by Neighbourhood

One of our biggest experiments so far has been our neighbourhood pilot in Stoke. It started with a simple question: what if we focused deeply on one local area?

Karen Pilkington led the way: “I’m both excited and anxious—I don’t know if folks have the time or interest,” she said. But what followed was a steady unfolding of trust, connection, and curiosity.

We brought together councillors, businesses, residents, and community groups—not with a fixed plan, but with an open invitation. “We don’t want to create yet another hub-and-spoke model,” Matt Bell reminded us. “We want to try a truly networked approach.”

Alongside that, we began to look at how neighbourhood-focused infrastructure could support work that is often invisible—like the labour of relationship-building or the value of just showing up.

This work also pushed us to think more deeply about local social prescribing. As Karen noted, “If there’s no community group left, there’s nowhere for link workers to send people.” It’s not enough to have referral pathways—we need to strengthen the web they’re meant to connect to.

This pilot showed us something important: real system change starts small, in specific places, with real people. It’s slow work—but powerful. Because belonging doesn’t happen in theory. It happens on your street, at your bus stop, in your local café.