URBLOG

Rise of the Brixton Pound

Rise of the Brixton Pound

The Brixton pound is the latest local currency to be launched under the umbrella of the Transition Town Network, a rapidly growing global movement that urges local communities to "respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of peak oil and climate change".

"The Brixton pounds could be a catalyst for both interaction and exclusion. Will it be seen by the black community as white, middle-class liberals doing their stuff? It could act as a wedge between the communities if not done right. Community cohesion is about creating shared spaces and values . The Brixton pounds scheme will need the black community to buy into it, or else it will be seen as a white pursuit."

Bees in the City

Bringing the buzz back to gardens and rooftops

The Beehaus, a new  contemporary beehive for the urban beekeeper, launched today (Wednesday 5 August) by Omlet with support from Natural England, will make it easy for anyone - from amateurs to seasoned apiarists - to help bees find a home in urban gardens up and down the country.

“There is no reason why our towns and cities should exist as wildlife deserts - wildlife can thrive when we design our urban areas with nature in mind and the Beehaus is a great example of how easy it is for anyone to bring the natural world closer to their doorstep.”

Creating a buzz in Britain's towns and cities

Apiarist courses in many places are over-subscribed and membership of beekeeping associations has shot up with the increased awareness of the plight of the productive pollinator. Those without gardens are increasingly using rooftops for their hives.

Bishops and bees

Recession opens possibility for community land

Common ground

The recession is shifting attitudes about land ownership, making it easier for local people to club together to buy sites - from inner London to rural Devon.

Practitioners  argue that urban neighbourhoods and villages around the country are crying out for new, equitable forms of land ownership - dictated by need, rather than by greed - to deliver affordable homes, new businesses and community facilities that are no longer at the mercy of markets.

Community Land Trusts a resource to assist you develop community land trust solutions for affordable housing, amenity and workspace in Britain.

Woolies: The Cantle Challenge

From The Times

January 17, 2009

Woolies’ demise is a community opportunity

Woolworths was at the heart of communities and must be replaced by local businesses not more faceless brands

Sir, The tragic demise of Woolworths has left a huge gap to fill. In market towns all across the country “the wonder of Woolies” was that it provided a heart to our high streets. Instead of refilling all of the 800 shop premises with yet another “brand”, we believe there is the opportunity to do things differently: to help to remake the high street and to create local community/business networks to harness entrepreneurial talent, foster resilience, build local sustainability and create a new and productive bond between people, business and the community.

A number of reports have already drawn attention to the homogenisation of our high street — a handful of national and local brands dominate every shopping centre from Truro to Tynemouth. Moreover, for once, let’s anticipate the impact of recession on communities and intervene before tensions arise, and we all pay the price in loss of cohesion. If the money is there to underwrite the financial system, there must surely be enough for the modest intervention in the renewal of our communities.

We propose that the former Woolworths stores be converted into modern market halls, owned and controlled at a local level, providing space and support for local grown produce and locally produced goods. The first occupants could be the local farmers who presently have to contend with all weathers on windswept car parks. They could share refrigeration, storage, cash handling and marketing, gaining a prominent daily foothold in the high street, benefiting from the economies of scale.

But other local products could also be brought to market, again sharing many services and with access to business support and business development.

Each local store could be run by local chambers of commerce or other community groups with support from local authorities, using their economic development powers and, just as importantly, by networking local producers and business services to reconnect with the retail industry in local communities. We hear a lot about the importance of building social capital and the role of civil society. Rarely do we get the chance to invest in their renewal to the benefit of people and community.

It would be a tragedy to waste this once in a generation opportunity.

Ted Cantle

Executive Chair, Institute of Community Cohesion

How do we feed the cities of the future?

BBC Radio 4's Food Programme asks how do we feed the cities of the future? With population growth, concerns over food supplies and food prices, lecturer, author and architect  Carolyn Steel sets out a future vision of urban life that looks again at how we feed cities. The way in which food arrives in cities has become invisible and instead of markets being at the centre of city life, supermarkets now exert a powerful influence on the development and shape of urban areas.

Listen here. 

Moral, But No Compass

Government, Church and the Future of Welfare
This new major study  draws on hundreds of interviews and survey questionnaires, describes the modern setting in which the government's welfare and related voluntary sector policies often are experienced as “discriminatory”, inadequately rooted in evidence and at risk of failing the faith communities.

produced by the von Hugel Centre for the Study of Faith in Society

Francis Davis in The Tablet

Lectures mark Temple anniversary

A series of nationwide events has been announced to  celebrate the 60th anniversary of the
William Temple Foundation.

13th May The demise of Prophecy or Reinventing Governance? – Faith and the Welfare State Dr Francis Davis at University of Manchester, Lecture Theatre A7 16.00

Download ronald_preston_lecture.pdf

25th June Economics in a postscarcity age – the contribution of faith and economics
Dr John Atherton at Church House, London, Room 3 – 16.00

5th November From Welfare State to Welfare Society – the contribution of faiths to happiness and wellbeing in a pluralised civil society Rt Revd & Rt Hon Dr Rowan Williams  at St James Church, Piccadilly, London   17.00

Revisiting the Peckham Experiment

The Pioneer Health Centre in Peckham provided a model of community health work from 1930s-1950s.  Jonathan Freedman  considers the lessons in The Guardian and a forthcoming Radio 4 Long View on 27th November.

"Peckham is also a parable of a wider kind. The post-1945 rush to build a universal welfare state trampled on too many small, creative hives of ingenuity. [...] It could add up to a renewed notion of what the state is for - first to guarantee universal rights and then to nurture and encourage the kind of human-scale cooperation that made Peckham such a phenomenon. Ministers are right to look around for inspiration, but they shouldn't ignore our collective past: they might be surprised, and delighted, by what they find there."

Mike Cushman takes up the story.

Towering ambition

Is a pioneering South Bank housing body compromising its principles by wanting to build tall? Steve Rose reports in The Guardian.

For many Coin Street Community Builders on London's South Bank has been a pioneering example  of social and affordable housing working with social enterprise in a hottly contested location. New proposals raise a different set of challenges to the ethos and direction of CSCB.

Glimpsing the new Jerusalem

URBLOG REVIEW

Stephen Lowe on Regeneration and Renewal edited by Malcolm Torry  "...important reading for all those faced with major regeneration in their parishes and dioceses."

Download regeneration_and_renewal.doc