Two, four, six, eight … why don't you participate?

Have the mainstream services failed you and your neighbourhood in recent years? No? Good. Mind you, I suppose if I've read the neighbourhood renewal strategy correctly, then only 10% of you were ever going to answer yes.

So I guess then that 90% of you have been empowered to develop your own solutions to the problems faced by your community. Maybe that's because of your education, your job or the opportunities you've had in life, or perhaps you've just been empowered through democracy.

If none of these apply, or you answered "yes" to my first question, I expect you are quite glad of the developing strategies that will bring about more community empowerment. Aren't you?

Empowerment has gone to our heads
Most of us reading this are probably working to some degree to empower our service users and, with the agendas brought by neighbourhood renewal, we now have to consider how we might increase such empowerment.

But hang on a minute. What is all this empowering for? We can enable people to play a part in the renewal of neighbourhood infrastructures, but are we also empowering people to renew themselves as our neighbours?

OK, that may not be the exact wording in the strategy, but community empowerment would imply that a change in the attitudes and expectations of individuals is required. And what about that little word "our" I put in that question? Whose neighbourhoods are we seeking to renew: those in which other people live, or the ones we go home to after work? Neighbourhood renewal may be targeted at those areas of greatest need, but how many people in your organisation earn enough to be sure of never living in these areas?

Let me put all of this another way: are you a member of your local residents' association?

It's a question I often ask at various talks and training events, but I've yet to encounter a room of professionals where more than one hand goes up. And if I then ask about Neighbourhood Watch, that hand usually goes down.

Now, I am not about to tell you how I always find time to go to my local meetings as a resident. Nor will I say I see it as something vital to my home life in order to be a fully functioning member of my community. I may work with such groups in a professional capacity, but never in a personal one.

Neighbourhoods with the poorest quality of life have come about because of an ‘us and them’ mentality. Given a choice, ‘we’ would not buy a house where ‘they’ live

So I may already have a chance to directly influence service providers. So am I excused? Is everyone who works in housing excused? Is community empowerment just for "the public"?

I know I'm not alone in my apathy towards attempts to empower me as a resident. I must admit I find it hard to think of what would make me want to attend community meetings in my own time. But I earn less than the national average and live in a priority ward in Stoke-on-Trent, so surely Neighbourhood Renewal is meant for me too.

Maybe not. Here I am with a voice in a national publication – I clearly don't need any help to raise my concerns at local or regional levels. But do I need help to find my voice at a community level?

Perhaps community forums are for other people. So long as they don't put speed ramps down my road, or a brighter street lamp outside my bedroom window, I really wouldn't mind what they decide. Would you?

A fundamental flaw
Neighbourhood renewal has great potential to achieve positive change, but I believe it contains a fundamental flaw.

Those neighbourhoods that have the poorest quality of life have come about through many different causes – housing policy, education standards, economic change – but also because of an "us and them" mentality. Broadly speaking, given a free choice, "we" wouldn't buy a house where "they" live, nor do "we" freely mix with "them" socially.

The "poorest neighbourhoods" suffer from many disadvantages – one of which is that very label of being the poorest. I believe, if handled badly, neighbourhood renewal will add to this inequality by creating areas where community engagement is encouraged, while allowing the rest of us to keep our apathy and opinions that it is a waste of our time.

That divide will become increasingly apparent, and create future problems. After all, why on earth should your tenants value and attend their local community meetings when you don't go to yours? If you were asked that question by a tenant, do you have an honest reply for them?