My Leeds was a key participatory strand of the Leeds 2023 Year of Culture, creating a network of 33 Neighbourhood Hosts who built strong connections within their communities and with each other. Many of them expressed a desire to continue their cultural work locally.
This project explored how co-production and asset-based community development could help sustain and build on the work that emerged from My Leeds. A group of Neighbourhood Hosts became co-researchers, reflecting on their roles, sharing their learning, and imagining their future beyond Leeds 2023, but as part of the cultural development frameworks in the city. Together, they created a manifesto for future action and launched new community projects based on local strengths and resources.
The project produced outputs as required by the manifesto: planning a range of new asset-based community projects and revealing the impacts of the work being embedded in local contexts.
The learning legacies from this project supported Leeds City Council’s Cultural Policy Team in formulating the city’s future ‘community cultural leadership programme’ and the development of their Cultural Strategy.
This project was funded by the 2023–2024 Research England Participatory Research Fund, and it responds to Leeds City Council’s 2023 Area of Research Interest ‘Culture’, specifically ‘Leeds 2023 Legacy’.