“It’s about feeling really good.” How social impact is being measured at Brent Cross Town

Some of the methods include observing local people using a tool called MOHAWK. “It’s basically about having a clipboard or a tablet or a phone and counting and coding people’s wellbeing behaviours. We look especially at physical activity connecting with others, so social activity and taking notice of your environment,” says Anderson.

“We also collect self-reported behaviour, using intercept surveys to literally grab people in the street or public spaces and ask them.”

Anderson stresses the importance of baseline data for comparison. “Really important to get data before, then after and repeat data collection into the future. In the baseline, you’ll find negative insights to turn around and positive things to protect.” For Brent Cross, a positive finding was a higher than average sense of belonging – something the venture will be keen to preserve. 

The Flourishing Index creates some accountability for the ambitions of the council and whether or not their vision is realised. Luke Ward Project Director, Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration programme at Barnet Council said: “A site of this size was always going to require a partnership and we wanted a development partner who shared our sense of vision and could deliver it in a way that was commercially viable.”

“We didn’t want a masterplan,” says Ward. “We were looking for a philosophical partner. Someone who could share our ambition for a longterm place that was there for multiple generations and could withstand the changing socio-economic factors and be there for hundreds of years to come.”

For Related Argent, the Flourishing Index is about more than wellbeing: “Now is this the right thing to do? Absolutely. But does it also have a business reason for it? Yes it does,” says Carolina Correia, Senior Social Value Manager at Related Argent, during the session. 

“We have talked to a lot of occupiers and we’ve seen that this not only makes the best sense social value-wise, it  also makes great business sense.”

“Through our work, we have found that a strong ESG strategy makes our places much more attractive for companies to be based in, and whilst the environmental side is almost taken as a given now, the S of social value is still very much unknown for companies.

“Through the delivery of the Flourishing Index and the attached social value strategy we’re effectively giving these companies an opportunity to join up to a successful framework that will help then deliver their social value strategies and provide positive impact on their neighbourhoods,” Correia adds.

Why flourishing? “It’s been shown to have lots of utilitarian benefits,” says Anderson. “People who are flourishing are associated with higher creativity, higher productivity, better brain function, immune function, greater tolerance of others… But also it’s just good. We value it.”

As for Barnet Council, Ward says they are in the process of rolling the Flourishing Index out to other projects. “We found it so convincing because of the frame it gives us to talk about regeneration and placemaking in a different way. It connects the work that we do with the lived experiences of local people, so that we can target our investment to respond to what the data is telling us across a whole range of socioeconomic indicators. It also helps us identify partners who want to be a part of that journey and to secure funding.”

Find out more:

• View the slides 
• Get in touch with presenters
• Learn more about Brent Cross Town flourishing community