大象传媒

Julia Huntley-Brown is one of our volunteer roving reporters. She's on the look-out for people with interesting views and stories. If you see her say "hello."

Here she gives her own impressions of the place she hadn't even stepped foot until a couple of weeks ago.

I have lived in Nottingham for ten years now, and in all that time I had never stepped foot in The Meadows until a couple of weeks ago!

It is common knowledge that The Meadows is notorious for drug related crime and shootings. Therefore, when the opportunity arose for me to get involved with this project about The Meadows, I can honestly say I felt a bit nervous and apprehensive at the prospect of what I might be letting myself in for.

The Bridgeway shopping centre - the heart of the Meadows

All the people I have met so far have pleasantly surprised me. Everybody has been very friendly and helpful. The Meadows seems to have a great down to earth community spirit.

The Meadows is easily accessible by a good, reliable bus service and has to have one of the best locations in the city - Being so close to town, the train station, sports grounds and river.

There are lots of green/open areas, although, the 70聮s housing estate seems to have been badly designed. I can imagine the quiet, pedestrian only alleyways and secluded corners make it feel slightly menacing at night.

Despite this, as a single mum, The Meadows is appealing as it has an impressive array of training schemes for getting people back into work. I wish I could get that kind of support where I live.

Bad reputations seem to stick and I get the impression that perhaps things are changing for The Meadows. I certainly can聮t remember the last time I heard about anything bad happening.

The people I have spoken to seem to really care about where they live and all seem to have good ideas about how to improve things. That聮s why I think it聮s really important to have something like this, where everybody can get together and have their say!