Havelock Estate
Partners in this neighbourhood see digital inclusion as a key driver of improving income maximisation for older people.
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About Havelock Estate
The Havelock Estate located in Southall, Ealing is a 21-hectare site built in the 1960s comprising 845 homes (481 council-tenanted, 364 leasehold/freehold). The total population is c.1,686, of which c.266 are aged over 60 years, across 4 Output Areas (OAs). Demographic information includes:
- 46.3% of residents were born in the UK/Ireland and more than half (53.7%) were born elsewhere. Most (91.4%) have lived in the UK for 5+ years with 8.6% living in the UK for less than 5 years.
- Just over half (54.7%) of all residents are of Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh ethnicity, 22.2% are of Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African ethnicity, 8.9% are White and 14.2% are of mixed, multiple or other ethnic groups.
- 50.2% of the population is economically inactive but those who were in employment in 2021 (43%), typically travel to work by car/van - 42.1%, and 60.3% of all households own at least one car/van.
- Most people (69.6%) rent their homes, while 18.6% own outright and 11.8% own with a mortgage or shared ownership.
- In 2021, over three quarters (80.6%) of all residents reporting being in good or very good health while the remaining were in fair (12.6%), bad (5.1%) or very bad health (1.7%).
- Fewer (13.5%) residents have a disability, which limits their day-to-day life a little or a lot. Provision of unpaid care is present within the neighbourhood, with 10.2% of all residents identifying as an unpaid carer.
Digital Inclusion Challenge
The Havelock Estate is a priority neighbourhood for Ealing Council. A significant proportion of the selected neighbourhood’s housing stock is concentrated on Havelock Estate which is part of a paused regeneration programme. Previous engagement work by Ealing Council and third sector partners with the local community has highlighted feelings of isolation and of being left behind by the Council. There are also concerns among older people that the sense of community connection and cohesion which was once strong on the estate, has been lost.
Income maximisation for older people was recognised as an important focus by Ealing Council through previous work with communities on the Havelock Estate. Current digital first pathways for income maximisation risk creating disconnection for people vulnerable to digital exclusion and potentially excluding them.
Havelock Estate
Behavioural Systems Map
Each neighbourhood stakeholder group defined a system objective for their behavioural system map. On the Havelock Estate, mapping was undertaken to explore digital pathways to support income maximisation for people aged 60+.
Overthe course of four in-person and online workshops, stakeholders co-designed a behavioural systems map of digital exclusion:
Mapping highlighted 5 key behavioural clusters:
- Accessing Services: This cluster captures how the increasing digitisation of everyday and essential services creates both pressure to engage and reinforcing cycles of exclusion when engagement fails.
- Advice and Support: This cluster reveals a support system in which trusted, local actors enable engagement but are constrained by capacity and accessibility barriers.
- Health and Social Care: This cluster shows how health system interactions offer potential entry points for support but are currently constrained by access barriers and underutilised referral pathways.
- Signposting, Information Flows and Awareness: This cluster describes a socially driven information ecosystem, where word-of-mouth is the dominant channel; creating both reinforcement effects and risks of further fragmentation.
- Training, Device Access and Connectivity: This cluster highlights that access to devices and effective, trusted skills development opportunities determine whether sustained digital engagement occurs.
"This case study highlighted the importance of building in user research from the very beginning, and ensuring Behavioural Systems Mapping includes participants with lived experience."
"The project provided a great test-and-learn opportunity to explore with all stakeholders workable, place-based ideas that could be developed and built upon to improve digital literacy that goes beyond the original scope of what we aimed to do within this neighbourhood."
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Geospatial Mapping
Geospatial mapping of the Havelock Estate and the wider borough used national and local datasets to explore the nature of neighbourhood-level digital exclusion. Analysis then looked to explore how this supported or challenged insights from the Behavioural Systems Mapping approach. This revealed:
- Limited digital skills, confidence and trust among older people;
- Affordabilitybarriers may lead to limited device availability and broadband speed; and,
- Lower English language proficiency which could lead to difficulties in seeking and providing digital support.
Behavioural Systems Mapping identifies disengagement not only as a result of low skills, but as a response to complex multi-step processes across services (e.g. logging in, verification, navigation), leading to abandonment.
Spatial analysis further added nuance: while several assets are within walking distance and others are well connected by bus, these may still be perceived as difficult to access, particularly for those with mobility constraints.
Community Engagement Insights
Engagement undertaken during the mapping processes helped to explore the lived experience of older people on the estate. Participants engaged in activities to share their knowledge and experience. Key insights included:
- Confidence as the primary barrier, not access: Participants’ challenges were less about access to devices and more about confidence and fear of getting things wrong if they continued to click, open, download things they were unsure about. Anxiety about breaking devices, making mistakes, or navigating unfamiliar interfaces frequently prevented engagement
- Reliance on informal support networks: Participants consistently relied on trusted individuals including children, friends, neighbours, or community members to help resolve digital challenges.
Engagement with residents supported the project team’s understanding of digital exclusion in the neighbourhood - challenging assumptions around device use by the cohort.
Intervention Blueprints
As a result of the behavioural systems mapping exercise, the stakeholder group developed a longlist of intervention ideas, which were further refined through spatial and community engagement data. Find out more about these in our final report.
Direct Access & Conversational Navigation to Local Support: a service coordination and navigation system that equips older residents with the knowledge, confidence, and practical skills to identify, access, and share accurate support information.
Community Digital Practice & Peer Support Network: establishes a structured, community-based ‘digital support practice’ that enables older residents to complete real digital tasks in a trusted, supervised environment, while progressively building independence and peer-to-peer support capacity over time.
Culturally & Linguistically Responsive Access: a targeted, community-led language support offer designed to reduce language-related barriers to digital engagement among older residents, by integrating basic language support with practical digital task guidance in culturally familiar and trusted settings.
Conclusion & Next Steps
The Ealing Council team do not expect to use this Behavioural Systems Mapping approach again. However, there would be value in having guidance on how to use Behavioural Systems Mapping for identifying interventions based on lived experience, with examples of how the tool has been used and met clear research objectives.
Find out more about the research and download the report here
