Big Local is a long-term resident-led programme which provides resources and support to 150 communities across England. Each of the 150 areas can access guidance and receives support from Local Trust, and has been allocated £1.15m to use in ways that they think will create change in their communities. Our Bigger Story is a longitudinal multi-media evaluation, charting the stories of change in 15 different Big Local areas to draw learning about the programme as a whole.

This report follows a series of evaluation papers and is focused on 2020, a year in which the pandemic disrupted accepted ways of working and interrupted Big Local plans and aspirations. The COVID-19 pandemic has tested the strength and resourcefulness of communities. The Big Local programme has continued throughout the crisis, which has provided perhaps a demanding test of the Local Trust hypothesis that “long term funding and support to build capacity gives residents in hyper-local areas agency to take decisions and to act to create positive and lasting change”. Over the course of 2020, the long-term multi-media evaluation of Big Local, Our Bigger Story, adjusted its research strategy to follow developments in the 15 Our Bigger Story study areas, linked to a parallel Local Trust research study examining community responses to COVID-19.

Based on over 250 interviews, primarily conducted online, and a virtual learning workshop bringing the study areas together, this report outlines how Big Local areas have responded to, and been affected by, the pandemic, chronicles progress in the 15 areas, and looks at what is next for Big Local partnerships in terms of achieving their goals and creating a lasting legacy. The main messages are: COVID-19 has dominated the thinking, plans and activities of the Big Local study areas.