I t’s Saturday morning in Preston and groups of people are hunched over whiteboards printed with maps of their neighbourhoods, covering them with Post-it notes.

“Green land for dog walks,” one reads. A street is marked “dark @ night” and another “hangout spot”. The groups are identifying what’s already available in neighbourhoods and what is desirable. It is part of the social action lab, a project with the British Council and the University of Central Lancashire to encourage Preston residents to become more active within their communities by offering them seed funding to develop projects.