It’s essential to maintain the relationships and trust you build with your local community groups. Here’s how:

• Maintain trust and transparency by keeping community groups actively engaged as the project develops.
• Continue engagement with your communities and update them on any changes to plans and ensure their needs are continually addressed. 
• Stay in touch. Involve more people from the local community to help you achieve the development of a safe, accessible and inclusive facility. They’ll be more likely to use the facility, recommend it to others and take ownership of community assets through volunteering, developing a workforce or co-designing an activity. 

Engagement should continue even after the project has been completed to ensure that the facilities work for the audience on a long-term basis and evolve to reflect changing needs.

Community groups can play a key role in the operation, management, and activation of your facility:

• Include local community groups on your steering groups or equivalent. It’s important that local groups are included in decision making and that their needs are represented. 
• If further community engagement is required, they may have useful contacts or information from other community groups.

Local community groups can support delivery of activities through promotion or identifying representatives to become qualified coaches and deliver activities themselves. Could you help them achieve those qualifications as part of your plans?