Being back at New Local's Stronger Things event this year felt surprisingly uplifting.
I’ve been out of this space for a while, and walking into the Guildhall again brought back memories of big ideas and bold statements. But what stood out this time wasn’t just the vision or the stories, it was the listening.
There was a noticeable shift in tone. Less about having the answers, more about being in it together. I heard council teams talking honestly about what’s hard. Community leaders naming what’s needed and getting heard. People slowing down enough to really listen to each other. There were stories of real collaboration, of sitting with uncertainty, sharing power, showing up with care. And as social explorer, Cormac Russell put it 'making good trouble'. Playful and human too.
It felt stronger, more grounded and this gives me hope for the kind of change that lasts. The kind that grows from relationships, not just strategies. Where people working inside systems, across them and at the edges, find common ground and start to build from there.
It gives me hope for leaders who don’t need to have all the answers, and who are willing to make space for other voices. Space for uncertainty, for lived experience, for different ways of knowing and doing.
It gives me hope that we’re moving, slowly but surely, towards a way of working that values care as much as action, and process as much as outcome.
And maybe most of all, it gives me hope that those who’ve been quietly doing this work, in communities, in organisations, in local government and in-between the cracks, are no longer doing it alone.
*New Local is an independent think tank and network, with a mission to transform public services and unlock community power.
(Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash)
