Dr Shaaz Mahboob and Professor Hilary Pilkington from the Independent Leicester Review Panel reflect on the meaning of community and the importance of hearing from all those impacted.
STRONG communities do not emerge from nowhere – they depend on consistent and collective commitment to living well together.
The time we have spent in Leicester over the past few months has confirmed for us that few places demonstrate this commitment as clearly as Leicester.
But we have also seen and heard how the events which took place in east Leicester in August and September 2022, often called the “civil unrest”, shocked those who live in or know the city.
The violence that has struck a number of towns and cities over the past few days shows the vulnerability of communities to the rapid escalation of events. It also underlines the importance of learning from earlier events in order to help our emergency services and local authorities respond and to build resilience across communities up and down the country.
Through the Independent Leicester Review, we are working to understand the complex combination of circumstances and factors that contributed to these events, and how the residents of Leicester can be supported to move forward and prevent these issues happening again.
We have been reaching out to communities and organisations to build as full a picture as possible of how best to achieve this and we launched our Call for Evidence in May in order to provide a direct route for individual residents and organisations to tell us about their experience and suggestions.
Use this QR code to access the Call for Evidence
The Call for Evidence remains open until Monday (12). It asks a number of straightforward questions, to which you can respond in your own words. Responses will be treated confidentially, and you may contribute anonymously if you so wish.
Whoever you are, whatever your background, if you witnessed or were involved in these events, or simply want to share your views on where Leicester goes from here, we want to hear from you.
To have your say, visit Independent review into civil unrest in Leicester 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Bob Blackman MP speaks during the event