Our Life wins prestigous community influence award

Our Life's pioneering Talking Food: Taking Action project, which worked with residents from across the North West to consider the question "what can be done to make it easier for people to get healthier food?" has won the Centre for Public Scrutiny's (CfPS) community influence award.

The CfPS is the national leader for scrutiny and accountability in public services and the 2011 awards recognise and reward best practice in the scrutiny of local decision-making.

Talking Food: Taking Action was a region-wide project initiated to explore the barriers to eating a healthy diet and presented a fantastic opportunity to engage the region's more marginalised communities who are less able to get the best out of the existing food system.

The award focused on the work carried out in the Westminster area of Ellesmere Port. In 2010, 20 Westminster residents came together to investigate food issues and set out their priorities for gaining better access to healthy food.

Our Life supported the residents to lead their own inquiry into the food system and those attending worked together to prioritise the barriers they face around food. They then heard from experts on the subjects they had prioritised to learn why they exist. Using that knowledge, they agreed local and national changes they'd like to see and developed a series of actions they were keen to take forward locally.

In February 2011, the residents gathered in their Healthy Living Centre to set out their plans to senior representatives of local health bodies, the council and charity sector. Top of their list was to try and develop a local food co-op on Westminster selling healthy local grown produce.

The Westminster residents have continued to meet on a regular basis and have formed their own Westminster Food Action group. With help from local agencies, NHS Western Cheshire, Cheshire West & Chester Council and Heart of Cheshire, the residents are assessing local demand for a food co-op and investigating premises. Another idea that gained support was local cookery classes with residents themselves being trained and certified in food hygiene. Residents are also investigating if the local cookery classes and the food co-op could be supplied from a local allotment.

Speaking after being presented with the award at the CfPS's 2011 annual conference in London on 2 June, Our Life chief executive, Dr Alison Giles said: "I'm really delighted that Our Life's work has been recognised by the Centre, but the real winners of the award are the participants themselves, who have produced a shared vision and taken forward actions to enable the people of the Westminster estate and beyond easier access to healthy food, produced fairly and sustainably.

"What's most exciting and inspiring is the true partnership working that has developed between the residents and local agencies, built on trust and a mutual desire to bring about lasting change. This approach is so powerful it really does deserve the recognition it has received and I hope it will lead to citizen-led action in other areas."

For more information on the initiative, read the Talking Food: Taking action case study or visit the Talking Food: Taking Action pages to see what the participants are doing.