Derby City Council negligence to Derby.support — but now is the time to build together
Derby.support is Derby Community Hub, founded in December 2021. We were never the only organisation encouraging Derby residents to speak, record, question and participate—we were one part of a much wider community effort. Many residents, campaigners, independent organisations and businesses were doing this long before us and will continue long after us. Most organisations we’ve encountered in Derby have been good or exceptional—what we call gold. Our serious concerns relate to a small number, not Derby’s voluntary, community or business sector as a whole.
Our first core‑organisations meeting took place at Artcore on 9 October 2023, supported by Artcore providing the venue. Alan Graves spoke at that event, reminding us that everybody has a role to play in their community. We took that seriously. Since then we’ve focused on building, testing ideas and developing Derby.support. We also recognise our own limitations: we haven’t managed to stage another event like that for DCC and others to attend. Community organisations have finite time, people and resources, and sometimes the ground has been muddy on our side too.
But that’s also why we’re disheartened. We’ve publicly tagged DCC and other Derby organisations repeatedly while documenting and developing what we’re doing, yet meaningful engagement hasn’t followed. We’ve felt similarly disappointed by our experiences with the University of Derby and Marketing Derby. We’re not asking anybody to hand us power or treat Derby.support as the voice of Derby. Power should sit with people—not one individual, political party, community or organisation. If Derby.support now finds itself with greater influence, that’s not an ideal destination for us; it’s a responsibility to help distribute participation more widely.
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Our journey so far
| Period | What happened | Where we are now |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 onwards | Derby had major plans, investment ambitions and consultations | We want to document what happened, what didn’t, and today’s backlog |
| 2017 | DCC ran a citywide residents’ survey | We want to understand what residents tangibly influenced |
| Dec 2021 | Derby.support / Derby Community Hub founded | Community feedback became central to our work |
| Oct 2023 | First core‑organisations meeting at Artcore | Alan Graves spoke about everybody playing a community role |
| 2022–23 | Let’s Talk Derby existed | From our experience, it didn’t feel practical or informative enough |
| 2024 onwards | “Have your say” became much more visible | We want to test whether visibility translates into influence |
| 2024 onwards | TXTWRK.com launched and developed | A new way to centralise public, actionable feedback |
| 2026 onwards | Derby faces major change | We want communities involved from the beginning, not afterwards |
The bigger question: does Derby have a feedback system people can trust?
DCC is again promoting “Have your say”, including consultations it says were developed using community feedback. Visibility is good—but visibility alone is not meaningful engagement.
Residents should be able to trace:
CONSULTATION → RESPONSES → EVIDENCE → DECISION → SPENDING → DELIVERY
If that chain disappears halfway through, simply saying “we consulted” isn’t enough.
We’ve encountered:
•webpages and planning information difficult to navigate
•consultations easy to miss or too short
•claims hard to reconcile with available evidence
•figures or results where underlying data needs to be clearer
The Emerging Local Plan illustrates the problem: how many ordinary residents know those pages exist, understand the terminology or have time to respond? These decisions could shape Derby for decades.
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What Derby.support now wants DCC and public bodies to publish
To build trust, Derby needs visible evidence:
•Original consultation data(ca://s?q=Show_original_consultation_data)
•Participation numbers(ca://s?q=Show_how_many_people_participated)
•What people actually said(ca://s?q=Show_what_residents_said)
•How responses influenced decisions(ca://s?q=Show_how_feedback_changed_decisions)
•Funding allocations(ca://s?q=Show_what_funding_was_allocated)
•Actual spending(ca://s?q=Show_what_was_spent)
•Delivered projects(ca://s?q=Show_what_projects_were_delivered)
•Cancelled or changed projects(ca://s?q=Show_cancelled_or_changed_projects)
•Evidence behind claimed outcomes(ca://s?q=Show_evidence_for_claimed_outcomes)
This is how trust is built—not through branding, but through evidence.
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What Derby.support will now document
•Plans from 2016 onwards versus what Derby actually received
•What was promised, funded, spent, delayed or abandoned
•How much of today’s pressure comes from yesterday’s backlog
•How easy consultations actually are for an ordinary person
•Whether feedback visibly changes decisions
•Successful DCC projects as well as failures
•Organisations doing good and gold‑standard work
•Community evidence from photographs, videos and public records
•Discrepancies without jumping straight to accusations—we’ll ask for evidence before calling wrongdoing a fact
•Our own performance too: if Derby.support gets something wrong, we’ll document and correct it
We will not label something “fraud” without evidence capable of proving it. But serious discrepancies shouldn’t be dismissed because they’re uncomfortable. If records, spending, project claims or consultation results don’t appear to match the evidence, the answer is simple: publish the evidence and let Derby see it.
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When you need to give feedback — our 10‑point approach
•Record the issue clearly(ca://s?q=Record_the_issue_clearly)—facts before assumptions
•Date and locate it(ca://s?q=Record_date_and_location)
•Photograph or video it(ca://s?q=Photograph_or_video_evidence) where lawful
•Save screenshots(ca://s?q=Save_screenshots_of_announcements) of webpages, announcements or promises
•Put your feedback on TXTWRK.com(ca://s?q=Use_TXTWRK_to_centralise_feedback)
•Send it to the responsible organisation(ca://s?q=Send_feedback_to_responsible_organisation) and request acknowledgement
•Share publicly(ca://s?q=Share_feedback_publicly) through TikTok or other platforms
•Keep every response(ca://s?q=Keep_responses_and_reference_numbers)
•Follow up(ca://s?q=Follow_up_on_feedback) and compare the response with reality
•Build a timeline(ca://s?q=Build_a_public_timeline)—and correct it if new evidence proves something different
TXTWRK matters because we’re trying to move beyond feedback that disappears into an inbox. Derby Community Hub already uses its @DerbyCommunityHub TXTWRK presence to manage developments through checklists where people can apply and volunteer. The principle is simple:
IDEA → EVIDENCE → FEEDBACK → CHECKLIST → PEOPLE → ACTION → PROGRESS → RESULT
Done responsibly—protecting privacy, avoiding harassment, keeping original evidence and separating facts from suspicions—that creates a community‑owned public record.
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What builds trust vs what damages it
| Area | Builds trust | Damages trust |
|---|---|---|
| Consultation(ca://s?q=Improve_consultation_accessibility) | Easy to find, enough time | Difficult to discover or rushed |
| Information(ca://s?q=Provide_complete_information) | Complete and understandable | Missing, inaccessible or confusing |
| Responses(ca://s?q=Publish_consultation_responses) | Numbers and findings published | Residents don’t know what others said |
| Evidence(ca://s?q=Publish_original_evidence) | Original data supports claims | Results cannot easily be checked |
| Decision(ca://s?q=Show_how_feedback_influenced_decisions) | Changes traceable to feedback | “We consulted” with no visible connection |
| Money(ca://s?q=Make_spending_traceable) | Funding and spending traceable | Figures require further explanation |
| Delivery(ca://s?q=Show_project_delivery) | Announcements become outcomes | Projects change or disappear without clarity |
| Community(ca://s?q=Engage_community_early) | People engaged early | Grassroots voices overlooked |
| Derby.support | Open, accountable, collaborative | We fail to recognise our own limitations |
The wider landscape
People increasingly photograph what they see, record video, save screenshots and compare announcements with reality. Social media has given residents confidence and tools to hold institutions accountable.
Political expectations are changing too. Debates about devolution, regional power and public ownership show that people want a more direct relationship with institutions. Locally, Alan Graves told us in 2023 that everybody has a role to play in community. We accepted that challenge.
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Great British Railways: a major opportunity
Government documents confirm Derby as the headquarters of Great British Railways. DCC announced in April 2026 that Becketwell and Midland House are the final two Derby HQ locations, with a final site decision expected later in 2026. GBR is intended to become a major publicly owned organisation bringing track and train together, with creation expected in 2027.
Something of this scale should connect rail, skills, businesses, education and ordinary Derby communities from the start—not arrive around them. Derby.support wants to help make that happen.
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Where we stand now
Perhaps it is time to get down and dirty—but in the name of community empowerment, not another institutional fight. We recognise our limitations. We recognise DCC’s pressures. We recognise that relationships haven’t always developed as they could have. Goodwill can overcome those differences and give us stable ground instead of muddy ground.
We hope Derby City Council now welcomes Derby.support, helps us build, challenges us constructively and becomes part of this changing community format for the City of Derby. Our door remains open to DCC, the University of Derby, Marketing Derby, GBR and every organisation genuinely prepared to build with communities rather than simply talk about them.
Where DCC got it right, we’ll say so.
Where community organisations delivered excellent work, we’ll celebrate it.
Where evidence shows improvement, we’ll acknowledge it.
Where something doesn’t add up, we’ll ask for the records.
Because “Have your say” should mean more than filling in a form. It should mean residents can see what happened because they had their say.
Why have DCC not engaged with our feedback programme, you have to ask — we’re literally dying inside.
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