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Exploring the Value of Regional and National Datasets for Third Sector Organisations
Natural England’s data places Bransholme in one of the highest categories for access to green space. Yet young people living there describe limited options and disconnection from nature.
“I live in a flat in Bransholme, there’s no green spaces.”
That comment captures the central tension in Data, Place and Lived Experience. Bransholme falls within the most deprived fifth of neighbourhoods in England, but Natural England’s Accessible Greenspace Inequalities data classifies it as H1, indicating comparatively strong access to green space. The two accounts answer different questions. A dataset can show whether green space is present. Lived experience reveals whether people value it, use it or feel that it belongs to them.
Drawing on the Yorkshire Engagement Portal (YEP), the report uses the Yorkshire Vitality Observatory and Yorkshire Vitality Jobs to build a wider picture of Hull. The Observatory shows that Hull’s population of young people grew by 5.13% between 2011 and 2023. Yorkshire Vitality Jobs records a 6.97% increase in employee numbers over three years. Alongside continuing challenges around qualifications, deprivation and opportunities, these trends provide important context. They cannot explain how people experience those conditions or how community organisations respond.
Rewilding Youth is a Community Interest organization working across Hull, East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. Through bushcraft, gardening, outdoor education and nature-based wellbeing programmes, it helps young people from predominantly urban and disadvantaged communities connect with nature. Over a fourteen-month period, Rewilding Youth engaged 1,220 unique participants in Bransholme through schools, youth centres, community venues and local green and blue spaces. Its monitoring data shows where activity takes place and who participates. Young people’s accounts explain what those experiences mean. One participant said, “Feels like we have our own little community.”
For third sector organisations, the practical lesson is to combine different forms of evidence. Regional and national data can identify patterns. Organisational data can demonstrate the response. Lived experience can test assumptions and explain what the numbers mean. High statistical access to green space should not be read as evidence that support is unnecessary. Equally, attendance does not by itself demonstrate connection, belonging or lasting change. Numbers help organisations decide where to look. The people who live there help explain what action should follow.
Read the full report, Data, Place and Lived Experience: Exploring the Value of Regional and National Datasets for Third Sector Organisations, to see how regional platforms, environmental datasets, organisational monitoring and young people’s voices can be used together.
The report was written by Ben Harris of Rewilding Youth and edited by Guifre Balleste Santacana of the Yorkshire & Humber Office for Data Analytics (YHODA) and The University of Sheffield.
