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Caffrey Hill Community Space - Clanmil Housing Association

Caffrey Hill

Clanmil believes that a good home is about more than bricks and mortar, and aims to create settled, harmonious communities where people are proud to live and raise their families.

Caffrey Hill is a 166 home social housing scheme in West Belfast completed in 2013.  As part of the scheme Clanmil created a community space incorporating play facilities.

The purpose of the community space was to encourage the new tenants, who came from a range of areas and backgrounds, to come together in play and leisure thereby building and helping to maintain good neighbour relationships. The space was also intended to help reduce the potential for nuisance and anti-social behaviour. Local children and communities were involved in planning the space, in partnership with Groundwork.

One year on, the space is used for community events and is the focal point around which these events are planned. Through these events, the tenants have taken ownership of the space and help look after it, actively discouraging vandalism and dog fouling. The space provides children moving into the development the opportunity to mix, to get to know each other through play and to develop friendships.

The community space project at Caffrey Hill was a first for Clanmil and the organisation states it has learned important lessons about the benefits of incorporating community space in family housing schemes of scale and with regard to how to go about developing successful community spaces in other new developments currently at the planning stage.

Due to the success of this initiative Clanmil will continue to pioneer play space in our housing developments.  The organization has developed and is now implementing a new Play Strategy, whereby the provision of open space for play will be incorporated into plans for new developments of a certain density.

The inherent benefits experienced at Caffrey Hill and the value provided to residents have justified the initial costs and ongoing management costs.

More information

Clanmil Housing Association