This project is supported by The National Lottery Community Fund through its Community Power Fund. The funding supports work with communities in Brighton and Hove to increase their ability to influence the places they live, the services they use and the decisions that affect their lives.
What is The People’s Blueprint?
The People’s Blueprint is designed to build community power with residents of Brighton and Hove city centre. We will bring together residents to have their say and shape how the city centre is designed and developed in a series of engagement events.
They will focus on their lived experiences of the built environment (the streets, buildings and spaces we use every day) and they will develop ideas and recommendations to help shape the City Centre Design Code, which guides future development. By creating the rules with residents, we can make the city centre work for everyone.
How the project will work
The People’s Blueprint is going to be built on four key areas of work:
- The Community Steering Group will bring together leaders and connectors of communities to guide us towards impact for local communities
- Capacity building for the local council and local people to equitably engage with communities on issues that matter to them
- A range of Community Conversations with residents who live in the city centre to explore their experiences, needs and views on what the built environment of the city centre should be like. This will happen with communities in places where they gather, so people can have honest conversations with others who they identify with
- A City Centre Deliberation Day where a diverse group of residents will explore the range of perspectives we learn about from the Community Conversations and develop a set of shared recommendations which will underpin the Design Code for the city centre
We will build community power by working with communities who live in the city centre. We will work with them from start to finish, including to define what impact would be for them and how we go on to achieve that. This will be particularly important amongst those voices we know are marginalised, including young renters, migrants and disabled people.
Community Steering Group
One of our first priorities in this project was to assemble a Community Steering Group who can help guide this project and make sure it is truly rooted in the experiences of city centre residents.
Bringing together diverse and marginalised voices, The Community Steering Group is acting as a critical sounding board throughout the project, helping to shape how communities are engaged and how their voices influence decision making. Bringing together people with strong links to local communities, the group supporting the design and delivery of Community Conversations, advising on what meaningful impact looks like for residents, and ensuring the work reflects the diversity of experiences across Brighton and Hove city centre.
By combining lived experience with local knowledge, the Steering Group is helping the project reach people who are often underrepresented or unheard, including young renters, migrants and disabled people.
Community Conversations
After attending training together, members of our Community Steering Group and officers from Brighton and Hove City Council have been running a series of Community Conversations with diverse communities. These conversations have focused on what different communities experiences and views on the built environment of the city centre are, including what they like and how they think it could improve. These conversations have taken place within communities, often where they already gather and on their terms. This has particularly included communities who are migrants, disabled people or young renters. The experiences and ideas from these reflections will be fed into the City Centre Deliberation Day to inform the wider group discussions.
City Centre Deliberation Day
We are currently planning for the culmination of this project, the City Centre Deliberation Day, where The People's Blueprint will be developed. A diverse group of 40 residents will come together to learn about the built environment of the city centre, the different ways it impacts on different commmunities and then develop a series of recommendations for what they think should be done in the city centre. These recommendations will be The People's Blueprint.
When: Saturday 21st November 2026 at 10:00am – 4:00pm
Where: Hove Town Hall
Payment: £85 than -you gift and complimentary lunch and refreshments
Support Available: Fully accessible venue, step-free access, childcare contributions, BSL interpretation, and translation support available.
If you are interested in attending the City Centre Deliberation Day then please complete this expression of interest form. This will ask you some questions about yourself. The deadline to complete the form is 9am Monday 2nd November. Later that week, we will then randomly a select a diverse group of 40 people to be invited to attend on the day. We will let you know by email if you have been selected or not.
Who we are working with
Thanks to National Lottery players, The People’s Blueprint has been funded for 2026 by The National Lottery Community Fund - the largest community funder in the UK. This truly life-changing funding comes from the first phase of its Community Power Fund – to support underserved communities in England to affect positive change in their local area. To influence the places they live, the services they use, and the decisions that affect them.
We are also working closely with Brighton and Hove City Council in this project. They are helping us to engage with communities and are ultimately the policymakers who can put into practice what recommendations communities develop.
