Boscombe Regeneration Project Research- Community voice

One of the most obvious problems I faced when data gathering for my questionnaires, is that it was apparent that the residents of Boscombe didn’t want to be involved in my research. I was very careful of how I worded my questions to ensure I wasn’t going to offend any Boscombe residents, with questions such as ‘why wouldn’t you attend any events in Boscombe,’ but if I’m honest, I was looking to see if the negative stigma of Boscombe still hung despite the efforts of the regeneration. It ended up that the majority of respondents were obvious to my sly question any because the most replied that it was because they hadn’t heard of any anyway!

Something I really enjoyed from analysing my questionnaire findings was the unpredicted responses I would read. Despite researching the Boscombe Regeneration Project inside and out, and preparing myself for a whole array of opinions from the public, I still found some responses surprising. If I was to predict the data I was going to analyse, I would have guessed that Boscombe residents would have said that the Boscombe Regeneration Project has had a positive impact on their area, and the outer communities would say it had no effect and refuse to change their stereotypes of Boscombe.

In fact it was Boscombe residents who felt the scheme had had no positive impact on their community. I guess you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

The most shocking aspect of my research was asking people in Boscombe high street of their opinions of events and activities taking place in Boscombe. One guy was answering my question when a boy came over and asked me what I was doing. I told him and out of my own curiosity, asked the boy as a teenager living in the area. Despite the boy not being over 18, so I technically shouldn’t have included him in my research, I found his response so raw and shocking that I wanted to show in my case study what it’s really like living there,

‘Its the dregs.. f*** all goes on here. You go out with your mates and get out of it then feel like sh** the next day at school’ [Anonymous 13 year old].

It emphasised to me what a shame it was that the Boscombe Regeneration Project has missed its events and activities project aims. Events and activities would help get boys like him off the street and positively engaging within the community.

This is when my first report interview went straight to the Boscombe Regeneration Partnership. I asked them whether they feel the events and activities project aims were being met. The reply from Cat McMillian was, in my opinion, fairly blunt and quite defensive. She seemed to back up her argument that events were going on in the area (pub nights- not so great for teenagers), and markets (great for the over 40’s), but nothing major happening for the community or tourist interest. All this made me want to do it push on with the case study and prove that an events industry is needed to regain a sense of community pride to the area.