LEARN MORE ABOUT ELTHORNE PRIDE – A DEDICATED COMMUNITY ORGANISATION

Elthorne Pride is a community organisation dedicated to making life better for local residents. Contact us for details on our activities.

ABOUT ELTHORNE PRIDE

In 2013 Elthorne Pride was one of 150 areas in the country to become a Big Local
Area. This meant it would receive a grant of £1,000,000 from the National Lottery
to be used by 2026, to invest in the area and community to help make it a better
place to live and work, as the community decided. Areas were chosen because
they were recognised as localities of need that had missed out on Lottery and
other funding over many years. What makes Big Local different to many other
community programmes is that all decisions on how to invest this money are made
directly by local people, giving them a voice.

The Elthorne Pride Big Local area is in the London Borough of Islington and is
located in the north of London near to Archway and the Emirates Stadium,
home of Arsenal F.C.

The big local area is bounded to the northwest by St John’s Way and to the northeast by Hazelville Road. The western boundary is formed by the upper part of Courtauld Road with Fairbridge and Malvern Roads forming the southern boundary which joins with Ashbrook Road and Elthorne Road forming the western boundary. It is made up of the Elthorne, Grovedale, and Fairbridge Estates and Bowerman Court. There are 3,596 people living in the Elthorne Pride Big Local area. 20% are young people aged 0-15 years and 10% are over the age of 65.

HISTORY OF THE ESTATE

During the 1960’s Islington Council, like many others in post-war Britain were
clearing and reconstructing much of the local area of N19. As part of this on the
south side of St. John’s Way, new modern housing estates were built namely the
Elthorne Estate and its sister estates. Most properties in the area were built between
1945 and 1999. There are also pockets of green and various small community gardens across the estate. Today, the Elthorne Pride Big Local area is home to two parks (Elthorne
and Zoffany Parks). Zoffany Park is in the middle of the Elthorne Estate and is somewhat run down. Elthorne Park is just on the boundary of the big local area.

COVID-19 IMPACT

Elthorne Pride Big Local acted immediately in responding to the needs of the local community during the first lockdown and remained very active throughout the Pandemic. A range of community initiatives included engaging volunteers and establishing a support network for vulnerable residents, the distribution of food and gift parcels, cooked meals and pamper bags; organising a variety of online and virtual community activities, workshops and events to keep people connected and active and running online homework clubs and summer schools. One remarkable example of a project developed to support community wellbeing, was a community arts project called Elthorne Pride “Quilt of Hope” which tapped into local creative skills to design and produce a community quilt that could stand as a “symbol of hope, inspiration and resilience”.

OUR LEGACY STATEMENT

Our legacy is about the biggest difference we have made and want to continue
to make it past the end of the Big Local funding programme. We have already
changed the conversation in the community and impacted the Elthorne Pride
Big Local area by bringing people together to create a sense of community and
giving people the opportunity to get out more and meet others, whilst working towards a place where residents can enjoy a safe, happy and healthy life.
We have created lots of activities for people both in the community and online. We have
worked closely with partners and invested in local businesses by using their
services. This has had a small positive impact on our local economy.
We were able to reach out to people during the pandemic and connect them
to our caring volunteers through food, conversations, friendship and activities- we
will continue this in the future to see our vulnerable people through the cost-of-living crisis.
We want to grow and build on all these successes and expand our activities to provide consistency and continuity and to meet the challenges of our community into the future.
Committing to building a strong, connected, creative community with a range of inclusive
things to do, where young and old value and respect each other, and residents are
actively engaged and equipped with the skills and confidence to act on local issues
that affect their lives.

We want to develop better relationships between young and older members in our community and to include excluded people like those who are homeless and those who are neurodiverse. We want to work with others to improve our green spaces to further enhance our neighbourhood and use them as places to meet and enjoy.

In particular, we want to connect with our young people in new ways to progress their aspirations by supporting opportunities for them through experiences, employment, study and enterprise opportunities.

To do this we will:

Establish a physical presence in the area and acquire our own building.
Become a constituted legal entity as a vehicle to manage the building and to deliver activities.
Partner strongly with other organisations in the area to complement their activities to make an even better community offer for the people of the Elthorne Pride area.
Leave behind a community which is growing in strength and neighbourliness and has the connections and mechanisms to continue this.
Create an infrastructure for young people to grow and engage with opportunities in the community and beyond.

The aspiration for Elthorne Pride is that it becomes a focus for the community.