Pride of Place: Norwich
Pride of Place: Norwich
In communities across the UK that have long endured hardship, BITC’s Pride of Place programme unites people from all walks of life around a vision for a better future, nurturing collaboration, sustained investment and self-belief to drive action so that millions can thrive in a place they call home.
Our work in Norwich
Business in the Community’s Norwich Pride of Place programme brings together businesses, voluntary organisations, and Norwich City Council to tackle the city’s hidden inequalities through long-term collaborative action. Established in 2020, the Norwich Leadership Board, chaired by Aviva, has used sustained leadership to build momentum, amplify Norwich’s story and history, and deliver practical support to the city and its people. The programme works to address challenges in Norwich’s communities through local activity and city-wide partnerships. Focusing on improving financial resilience and wellbeing, raising aspirations and attainment, improving social mobility, and strengthening community pride, the Norwich Pride of Place programme is supporting Norwich to evolve into a place where its people can thrive.
Why Norwich?
Norwich is renowned for its idyllic charm and its reputation as one of the friendliest cities in the UK, but it faces significant challenges that hide beneath this. The city’s social mobility ranks in the bottom 10% nationwide, with disparities in life expectancy of up to seven years between different wards. Around one-fifth of neighbourhoods in Norwich fall within the 10% most deprived areas in the country.
By harnessing the collective power of businesses, local authorities, and community organisations, we aim to create sustainable growth and elevate outcomes for every member of the Norwich community.
pride of place: Norwich
Our strategic priorities
Financial Resilience
Improving financial resilience and well-being to reduce food and hygiene poverty
Social Mobility
Raise aspirations and unlock potential to improve life chances and social mobility
Community
Build a sense of community, and local pride so people feel they belong and are supported
Our impact to date
Since we started working in Norwich in 2020, our leadership board, chaired by Aviva, has brought together senior leaders to facilitate long-term, transformational change. Together, we have successfully delivered over 200 events and activities to upskill and connect residents in partnership with Norwich City Council.
In our deep dive neighbourhood of Earlham, we listen and learn about the need of the community. Early actions include recruitment of volunteers to support a community clean up, support for a Social Supermarket, facilitating free community dinners, numerous donations of hygiene products for the children of Earlham and an opportunities festival held at the local community centre bringing doorstep activity to the community.
The 2025 Norwich Annual Impact Report celebrates a year of measurable progress and collaboration. From 42 Business Encounters connecting 1,730 pupils with 16 local businesses to innovative pilots tackling food and hygiene poverty, we’ve strengthened resilience, opportunity, and belonging. With over 1,000 volunteer hours and strong cross-sector partnerships, these achievements set the stage for 2026, where we’ll scale successful pilots like Support Now and expand Business Encounters citywide. Together, we’re creating sustainable transformation and unlocking potential for every community in Norwich.
Case studies from Norwich
Supporting The Feed
The Feed is a social supermarket that offers a wide range of affordable groceries to help people eat well despite rising cost of living.
During the Seeing is Believing event The Feed’s CEO, Lucy Parish, highlighted that having a guaranteed regular supply of food was becoming a real issue and at times the shelves were empty. This really impacted Jeremy Chew, Operations Director for Boparan Private Office, and within a matter of days, Jeremy had sourced regular delivery of frozen cooked chicken into The Feed’s social supermarket. It doesn’t stop there, Jeremy is also providing Nourishing Norfolk (a food hub that supplies food to rural communities across Norfolk) a regular supply of Frozen poultry goods.
Dental Hygiene Drive
To build trust and engagement in the community of Earlham, we sought to provide dental hygiene products to every child attending school in Earlham.
In April 2024, a team of 9 dedicated volunteers, including Marsh and Saxon Air employees, and the Place lead embarked on a mission to collect donations of toothbrushes and toothpaste from Norwich City supporters. The response we received was truly overwhelming.
Throughout the afternoon, over 1,500 items were donated and over £150 was raised on our JustGiving page, huge strides in giving access to dental care for children in Earlham.
Earlham Opportunity Festival
A priority of our Place work in Norwich is improving social mobility by way of access to job opportunities and skill development. With this, our focus has been on providing opportunities in the community that assist in employability, upskilling, and additional support.
In April 2024, we ran our first employability and wellbeing event at Cadge Road Community Centre in Earlham. The event brought together various providers covering employment opportunities, housing, and wellbeing support services. We had 19 different providers who shared their expertise and resources with the community,
In moving forward, we hope to replicate and adapt this programming to give similar resource access and support to schools and families in the community.
New outdoor space for primary school
Pupils at West Earlham Infant & Nursery School in Norwich can now enjoy a refreshed outdoor space to play and learn in thanks to volunteers from local organisations.
In May 2026, BITC and Groundwork East arranged a volunteering day attended by over 20 volunteers from several local businesses to improve the school’s grounds. Volunteers spent the day installing a new fence, planting a mixed hedgerow, repainting a shed, and adding enhanced safety and privacy features for one of the school’s outdoor spaces, which is used by staff and pupils for both playing and learning.
As well as volunteering on the day, Orbit sponsored the event, whilst community and environmental charity, Groundwork East, provided the equipment and expertise for volunteers to use.
Norwich Leadership Board
Our work is led by our local Pride of Place Partnerships – a cross-sector senior leadership board which sets the strategic direction for our work, mobilises their workforce to support with delivery of activities and acts as an advocate for the programme both regionally and locally. The Norwich Leadership Board is chaired by Andrew Dernie.
FAQs
The long-term vision is to help create a fairer, more connected and more resilient Norwich where businesses, communities and local leaders work together to improve opportunities and quality of life for everyone living in the city.
BITC defines place-making as long-term and transformational change in a particular geographic location. For us, it is underpinned by some core principles:
- Collaboration – bringing together business, public and VCSE sectors
- Business leadership – senior business leaders working together on a shared agenda
- Community-needs-led: based on the priorities and needs of the Place, as defined by the people in the place.