The future is determined by those who get involved.
Projects › Talk of the Town › Wildest Dreams
What's your wildest dream for Carrick?
Bringing wildest dreams to life one step at a time
In 2021, in the depths of a winter lockdown we developed our Wildest Dreams postcards and with the help of around 40 volunteers we delivered them to around 10,000 households. We also worked with young people in Carrick Academy and local youth groups to talk about what they wanted for the future of our town.
We knew we were being a bit bold popping through people’s letterboxes and asking them to share their dreams so we were delighted when around 100 people returned their postcards to us. We also got another 100 from young people. You can still see the cards on display in our Talking Shop.
We collated everyone’s dreams and produced a report that we have shared with funders and other communities since.
More importantly, our work since then has focused on two themes that came through from the postcards and that we thought we were in a good place to try to make them come true.
Firstly, people told us they wanted more shops in our town centre, which led to the development of Carrick Greengrocers, a fruit and veg shop owned by its 434 members who invested over £34,000 to help open the shop, which opened in July 2023.
Secondly, a popular theme was music, arts and culture, which people wanted to see more of. We agreed, and we know that arts and culture is a vital part of regeneration of places like Carrick, and is perfect for the community to take the lead on. So in 2022 we were awarded further funding from National Lottery Community Fund to develop an arts strategy and run events in the Town Hall. Our wildest dream is for the Town Hall to managed by the community for everyone’s benefit and for this amazing community asset to be a focal point for the regeneration of our town centre.
