Place-based living metrics

Place-based evaluation isn’t a checklist or toolkit. It’s a way of asking better questions about how change happens, for whom, and with what lasting value.

That’s why the recent evaluation workshop I co-hosted with Hospitable Environment, at Marine Workshops in Newhaven, was so energising. Bringing together 30+ people from cultural organisations, public sector bodies, civic initiatives, and creative projects across Sussex, the day created space to share, test, and challenge our thinking about what meaningful evaluation of place-based work looks like.

We mapped the pressures - on time, money, accountability - and the potential: to embed lived experience, shift power, build community voice, and make the case for long-term investment. Together, we explored who evaluation is for, how we can use data to learn (not just prove), and how creative and participatory approaches can sit alongside funder requirements.

This wasn’t just about local context, though Sussex certainly gives us fertile ground to develop a new way of thinking and doing. The ideas that emerged - from citizen evaluators to everyday evidence, from cumulative learning to cultural infrastructure metrics - speak to wider concerns across the UK and beyond. Anyone working in place, across sectors, would find resonance here.

While this workshop was funded by Sussex Co-Lab, the theme is part of a much wider focus in my current work on developing a bespoke methodology and ever-growing suite of methods and tools for place-based evaluation. It’s careful work, grounded in practice, policy, and research; and it recognises that evaluation, when done well, is not extractive but generative.