Case study: Radical Place Leadership for Serious Youth Violence in North Paddington

Client: Westminster City Council

Date: January – April 2026

Challenges faced by the client:

Westminster has the highest rate of knife crime in London, and in particular, the North Paddington area experiences the most concentrated impact of youth‑related violence and exploitation. Serious youth violence in North Paddington is shaped by complex, overlapping factors that sit across organisational and service boundaries - including trauma, mental health, financial pressures, exploitation, housing instability, and fractured trust between communities and institutions. 

While there are many strong services and effective interventions already in place, their impact is often not felt by communities despite best efforts. Sustainable impact is limited by fragmented provision, inconsistent coordination, and systems that struggle to hold people holistically across thresholds and life stages.

Radical Place Leadership is specifically designed for this kind of context, where no single service can solve a problem alone.

This work was commissioned by Westminster City Council to progress one of the recommendations from the North Paddington Serious Violence Taskforce made in October 2025, to define and pilot a Radical Place Leadership approach in the area. 

Our support:

Our support consisted of 3 phases.

The discovery phase: this phase consisted of document review and cross-system engagement and interviews to establish a shared understanding of how communities, public sector partners, and Westminster Council experience and respond to the challenges around serious youth violence in North Paddington. Engaged stakeholders represented a wide range of services, departments, specialisms, and residents in the North Paddington area. 

The design phase: We held two main group working sessions: the first with council colleagues, wider partners (including police and health), and community members, and the second with council colleagues only. In these sessions, we explored what it would look and feel like if the principles of Radical Place Leadership were enabled to flourish in North Paddington and identified a long list of both simple and radical changes that could get us to that future. Based on these sessions, we developed a preliminary set of key recommendations to take forward, which were tested and further developed with council stakeholders.

The handover phase: this phase consisted of further stakeholder engagement to iterate recommendations, culminating in the development of a final report outlining key findings and recommendations. We held a number of conversations with Council colleagues across departments and levels, including executive leadership, to discuss the recommendations and to motivate next steps. 

Outcome achieved:

Based on our engagement with 70+ cross-system stakeholders, we developed a report with findings of the area’s strengths, challenges, and core strategic recommendations to embed Radical Place Leadership in Westminster, with the overarching aim of curbing serious youth violence. Our findings have been presented to the Community Oversight Committee, and operational-level recommendation delivery is underway. We also presented our key points and strategic recommendations to the Council’s Executive Leadership Team.

Following the conclusion of this project, we are now further supporting the Council to consider strategic next steps on their Radical Place Leadership journey.

For more information on Mutual Ventures’ work in Westminster contact elizabeth.roe@mutualventures.co.uk.