Author: Ed Mayo, Cooperatives UK

We have lost one of our great community activists and innovators in participation this week. Tony Gibson, who developed the participatory toolkit, Planning for Real, and helped tough neighbourhoods across the country to turn around, died just short of his 95th birthday. He was a passionate, co-operative Quaker and a determined force of nature.

Tony made his name on the Meadow Well Estate, Tyneside, hit by riots – as Nancy Peters, who started the local credit union with Tony’s support, said at the time “at one time, you could leave the door open, people wouldn’t venture in and steal but now whether your door’s open or shut, they need the money to survive and its the same with children. The shoplifting, the aggression, the anger. I have never seen anything like it.” Starting with a talent survey of random houses in 1991, residents came together to respond, with the idea of ‘a new heart for Meadow Well’ in the form of a development centre built on a discredited youth centre. The response, though, was inertia. Despite the efforts of one sympathetic local employee from the Council, a senior officer was heard to say “those fuckers couldn’t plan a pram shed.” A decision was taken, instead, simply to close the youth centre.

As this dragged on over five hot Summer months, the residents started to drop out and then… a group of young people locally burned down the youth centre. What followed was two days and nights of riots, with fires, a burned out corner shop, pot shots at a police helicopter cruising above. The riots forced everyone to think again. The working party held estate-wide elections to form a group that could negotiate with outsiders. They used Tony’s Planning for Real approach, which creates a mock-up of the neighbourhood, from trash on the ground to buildings up high, on a table that people can then walk around, explore and together discuss options for improvement. This led to the development of a new community building, launched with a fun day. The first of many community-led improvements, it was the first building scheme in the borough that had taken shape from day one to completion without a single case of vandalism or theft.

I worked with Tony in support of a similar pilot on the Teviot Estate in East London and with colleagues such as Pat Conaty, we developed an early training course on community economic development. It was called Nutshell – one of Tony’s acronyms, which stood for ‘neighbourhood use of time, space, homes and environment for livelihood and leisure’. Rather than start with money (the conventional economic or philanthropic route), Tony guided us to start by matching local resources to local needs. Nutshell was the potential for great oaks in every tiny acorn.

Planning for Real become an exemplar for the new participatory practice of community planning and open decision-making. This and other tools are now mainstream – for example with planning for real championed by the mutual housing group, Accord (a member of Co-operatives UK) and the UK participation charity,Involve, which I am proud to be trustee and chair of, recently completing work on open government and designing a newparticipative accountability frame for the NHS in England. But the tools were always designed to be one part of a wider culture change and here, Tony’s work is still unfinished.

Together with Toby Gibson and regeneration academic Stephen Thake, I wrote an impassioned strategy in early 1997, arguing for a new model of local economic renewal in the UK – Taking Power, published by the New Economics Foundation, with support from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. In memory of Tony, whom I can’t think of without smiling, I repeat below the introduction and conclusion of that (now probably lost, online) paper.

Introduction: New imagination

As a society, the changes being forced on us are mind-blowing. There is not much we can take for granted any longer. This is neither a minus nor a plus: it is a fact of social and economic evolution which happens to be breathtakingly sudden. How we react to it, whether we feel helpless or exhilarated, depends on how we choose to think.

There are a hundred and one starting points for local community action, but all have one thing in common. It is the day you or a neighbour step over a broken pavement or rubbish dumped in a corner and say, not ‘someone’ should do something, but ‘we’ should do something.

Many more steps will have to follow. Everyone has a role to play. Communities are full of unused energy, talent, skills and knowledge. Once this is unlocked, great changes can take place.

But for every starting point, there are many premature end points, marked by the failure of those with power outside to let go. The change in mindset also has to work for the people who are, in Tolstoy’s words, sitting on the backs of the poor, decrying their condition, and willing to do anything but get off their back. This includes letting people make mistakes and giving the time needed for a participative local democracy to develop great deeds by small steps.

We have a choice of mindsets as a country.

The first is a continuation of the current paradigm of laissez-faire. This is the mindset of those who promise growth and a better tomorrow, but connive at cutting communities adrift through the rationing of welfare and resources.

The second is a commitment to a new paradigm in which communities can become agents rather than victims, with programmes that enable them to attack the structures of dependency and retake control of their destiny.

Conclusion: Power and poverty

Taking power means seeing what Vaclav Havel called ‘the power of powerlessness’. Typically, we identify power with ‘the powers that be’, those with money, political or police authority. But in its origin, power simply means the ‘ability to do or effect something or anything or act upon a person or thing’. This is not ‘power over’ but ‘power to do’. Taking power is not a revolution intended to establish a new hierarchy, but the subversive act of simply recalling how much we can do with those around us to change our own situation.

Tackling poverty means that we all have to see that this is for us: poverty is not something that happens to someone else (and no-one likes to think they are poor, however many research reports say they are). Poverty means relationships breaking up, bring fearful on the streets, not knowing your neighbours, losing your job, your child having asthma.

Perhaps the closest metaphors historically for what is implied are the 19th century campaigns for public health, or the 20th century creation of the National Health Service. It will require an all party commitment stretching over a generation, to implement. It will require public support and an understanding that community action can work.

We hope that this will fill a void in current thinking and offers a radical alternative to the rise of alienation in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. But it will require real change and devolution, and not the usual incorporation into other people’s agendas to serve other ends. That is the challenge.”

Author: Scottish Affairs Committee, Westminster

Land Reform in Scotland: Interim Report – Scottish Affairs Committee Contents

Conclusions and recommendations

1.  The Committee believes that, in order to formulate a successful land reform policy, far greater transparency is needed over who owns what land. We recommend that information about the boundaries and ownership of parcels of land should be made publically available via a National Land Information System, with a searchable database, and the same data should be freely available for the public to analyse. (Paragraph 24)

2.  We are surprised to learn of the lack of detailed, openly-accessible information on such topics as landownership, land values, land occupation and land use. (Paragraph 28)

3.  We found it surprising to be told Scotland’s land information systems are not as advanced as those of other countries, such as Turkey and Latvia. We recommend that all datasets relating to landownership, occupation, land values, land use and core reference geographies such as addresses be made freely available under an open data policy. We regard the availability of such information as a high priority and consider it doubtful as to whether the Scottish Government and civic society is in a position to develop a coherent land policy and programme of land reform in the absence of such information. (Paragraph 29)

4.  We recommend that the Scottish and UK Governments consider using the World Bank’s Land Governance Assessment Framework to assess whether Scotland’s system of land governance is fit for purpose. (Paragraph 30)

5.  We are concerned to hear that the Valuation Office Agency no longer publishes land price indices and recommend that this publication resume, in order to allow informed debate about public policy on land. (Paragraph 31)

Land Markets and Values

6.  We would welcome further evidence on the case for the retention of a distinct Agricultural Property Relief. (Paragraph 46)

7.  We would welcome further evidence on the case for the retention of the specific exemption of agricultural property, or sporting land, from non-domestic rates. (Paragraph 56)

8.  We would welcome further evidence on whether the annual reports on undertakings under the Conditional Exemption Tax Incentive Scheme should be disclosed. (Paragraph 64)

9.  We would welcome further evidence on whether the Government should publish the amount of tax foregone in exchange for the reliefs granted to the owners under the scheme. (Paragraph 65)

10.  The Committee accepts the evidence that the system of landownership in Scotland is a direct consequence of choices made in the past in relation to the legal and fiscal framework within which land is held. These choices were political decisions in the past and they will continue to be in the future. (Paragraph 75)

11.  The Committee has received evidence that questions the continuing justification for agricultural property relief, business property relief, business rollover relief and non-domestic rates exemption for agricultural and sporting property. (Paragraph 76)

12.  We are concerned that tax reliefs and exemptions distort the market as well as pushing up prices. (Paragraph 77)

13.  The Committee would be interested to hear further evidence on the continuing public interest in maintaining these reliefs and exemptions, and their impact on the market. We encourage further consultation on this topic. (Paragraph 78)

14.  We recognise the apparent complexity of state aid rules and the frustration felt by community groups and others over their interpretation, which can be seen as over-cautious and risk-averse. We understand that discussions are ongoing to clarify and resolve the issues that have been raised with us and welcome these. (Paragraph 97)

15.  In the course of the current State Aid Modernisation process we believe the Scottish and UK Governments should devise and secure agreement for a change in both the rules and the way they are interpreted, to allow community ownership of forests and other land to proceed in a clear and predictable manner. (Paragraph 98)

16.  We will maintain an interest in how the State Aid Modernisation proceeds and review the matter in our final report. (Paragraph 99)

17.  The Committee has identified the apparent contradiction of seeking to promote land reform by means of public money, through schemes like the Scottish Land Fund, when the price paid for the land is itself inflated through the reliefs and tax exemptions granted by Government. It would appear that taxpayer’s money is being used to pay for land that another part of Government has rendered more expensive through tax policy. We will be able to form a settled view after receiving further evidence. (Paragraph 101)

18.  We share the Scottish Government’s desire to see both an expansion of forestry in Scotland and greater levels of community ownership of land. We are not clear that the support framework for community forestry is well aligned with that for the public sector and the private sector. In particular, we are keen to explore further the economics of public, private and community forestry in terms of the funds that are committed by public agencies to support state, community and private forestry and the funds that, through grants and tax reliefs, are provided to the private sector. (Paragraph 109)

Topics for future consideration

19.  We would welcome further evidence on whether the ownership of estates through charitable companies set up by private owners is in the public interest and how governance of such organisations should be best organised. (Paragraph 111)

20.  We would welcome further evidence on how the fiscal framework of agricultural land might be reformed to meet the concerns of tenant farmers. (Paragraph 112)

21.  We would welcome further evidence on how the new CAP framework can best support farmers. (Paragraph 115)

22.  We would welcome more evidence on the extent to which land is owned in offshore jurisdictions as part of individual and corporate tax planning. (Paragraph 119)

A cast of 200 volunteers will join a team of professional artists and performers to tell the untold stories of the people of Inverclyde through drama, movement, music and breathtaking aerial performance. As audiences walk through the performance, they will be immersed in the experience.

The multi-art form production from 4 to 7 June is an original creation conceived and overseen by Mark Murphy, directed by Simone Jenkinson and Joseph Traynor of Cuerda Producciones, Argentina. It is produced by arts organisation Iron Oxide, with All or Nothing Aerial Dance Theatre, Tigerstyle and the Beacon Arts Centre.

The Creative Team stated: “Our vision is to create a show that has the power to transform: to find the extraordinary in the everyday; to confound expectation of what a group of people with a united intention can achieve and in doing so get to the very heart of what makes these incredible communities of Inverclyde tick.”

Touching, personal stories have been gathered from across the area. Inverclyde Community Development Trust has worked closely with community groups and individuals to discover memories and anecdotes – old and new – that have in some way affected the lives of the storyteller. Echoing their past industrial use, the Sugar Sheds function as a store for stories and a refinery for their production, before the raw material is turned into White Gold.

Paul Bristow of Inverclyde Community Development Trust said: “Our team have collected lots of reminiscences and stories over the years, but this was something quite different, White Gold asked us to look at a series of ten questions, such as ‘who do you wish you’d told you loved?’, ‘which song means most to you and why?’ and ‘tell us the story of a door you wished you had never opened’ and our volunteers sat down with folk from all across the area to see where those conversations would take us.

“We’ve been amazed by the power of the stories and the generosity of those who have given them. We’ve genuinely had moments of people bursting into tears or laughing aloud, sharing their answers and experiences with us. Most people, perhaps because we were strangers, were only too happy to share and there were some really sad and beautiful stories in there. We’re really interested to see how they have been adapted and incorporated into the performance.”

Edinburgh’s All or Nothing have been running aerial workshops with groups in Inverclyde throughout the year. White Gold aims to develop a lasting legacy of aerial workshops and classes in Inverclyde at the Beacon Arts Centre. Jen Paterson, of All or Nothing, said “All or Nothing has been leading aerial workshops at the Beacon as a way of introducing one of the main art forms that will feature in White Gold into the Inverclyde area.  As well as free taster classes in aerial skills, a group of local volunteer cast will train up more intensively in aerial harness and flying so that they have the skills to perform aerial alongside professional artists in the production.

“It is really exciting to be working alongside Simone Jenkinson and Joseph Traynor of Argentina’s Cuerda Producciones, and to be showcasing some of the leading, most experienced aerial performers in the UK.”

DJs and musicians Tigerstyle have been working with school groups, asking them for their take on the questions, teaching them the fundamentals of digital music creation and using their responses to influence and create music which will inspire the show.

Pops of Tigerstyle, said: “We had a great time working with students from St Andrew’s and St Francis’s Primary Schools. The children told stories to each other, we played some word games and then they collectively wrote some lyrics using their wild imaginations. We then worked with them to put together sounds. Everyone is really looking forward to seeing how the music will fit into the show.”

There are various opportunities for volunteers to get involved with the community cast, learn aerial skills or work behind the scenes with the technical team. Anyone over 16 years of age can take part – no experience is necessary. Interested parties should email laura@beaconartscentre.co.uk for further information.

White Gold is part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme.

Wednesday 4 June (preview): 6.30pm, FREE but ticketed.

Thursday 5 June and Friday 6 June: 6pm and 9pm, tickets £5 (£3 concessions)

Saturday 7 June: 3.30pm and 6.30pm, tickets £5 (£3 concessions)

Telephone: 01475 723723 / book online: www.beaconartscentre.co.uk

The bus from Dumfries to Galloway takes the busy A75 in its unhurried stride, eventually touching the waves of the Solway Firth at Wigtown Bay, then shadowing the coastline up through the small village of Carsluith, and onto its larger neighbour Creetown (population c.680); the two together and hills and small settlements beyond form the old parish of Kirkmabreck (population c.1000). Stepping out onto the old high street at Creetown conjures up times past, with the village having taken shape in the 1800s. Yet, this is no country retreat rather a working village built on employment in the parish’s granite quarries from the 1850s onwards. The quarries are now closed, and the last local employer of size – the Solway Steel works – shut too in 2012, but the Creetown Initiative, a community anchor organisation, remains hard at work and committed to a longer-term vision of sustainability for their community.

As with my two earlier articles, on Northmavine Community Development Company (NCDC) in Shetland and Govanhill Housing Association (GHHA) in Glasgow, the Creetown Initiative shows all the hallmarks of a community anchor: being community-led and concerned for local community interests (mission); seeking financial independence and strength to pursue that mission; and undertaking complex, multi-purpose working across local economic development, community building, service provision, and community leadership/advocacy.

And, as with those earlier articles, it’s how the Initiative works with the public sector and wider state that is my focus. NCDC and GHHA have benefitted from longer-term working relationships, if not necessarily always consistent, with the local and central state, while Creetown Initiative’s success has been built on its ability to access successfully significant levels of funding and resources from a range of largely national sources – central government, public bodies and some philanthropic trusts. This is not to say that the Initiative doesn’t have productive relations with the local authority (indeed it receives a small amount of core funding from Dumfries and Galloway Council currently), nor that it doesn’t generate earned income itself (it earns through consultancy and development work), but that it is its ability to access this much larger body of funding and investment that has been crucial to its extensive economic and social activities in Creetown. In so doing, the Initiative’s work has turned my attention to thinking about what would happen if public sector and community sector worked together for ‘the local economy’, as well as service provision; and as an alternative to the public sector being focused on economic and service development through the ‘same old, same old’ of centralisation and ‘efficiency’ via economies of scale.

Local staff and volunteers at the Initiative generate a rich picture of their community: ‘mixed’, with strong working class roots from the old granite quarries; but also with many ‘incomers’ seeking to enjoy rural life – running ‘lifestyles businesses’ or come to retire. They flag up, too, that many people struggle to make a decent living, with earnings low and many either self-employed, working part-time or unemployed. There is a seeming paradox here, for while Rural Scotland in Focus 2012 notes the region (and Southern Scotland more generally) as economically vulnerable – with declining employment levels and many economically vulnerable towns – and facing both an ‘ageing’ and declining (working-age) population; in fact a recent report pointed to approximately a third of workers in the region earning below the Living Wage (the highest level in Scotland). Yet Dumfries and Galloway also scores as highly as anywhere on the Scottish mainland within the Office for National Statistics’ Personal well-being statistics. Those working for the Initiative clearly value the community life, but were likewise concerned for its future; in particular, given the lack of opportunities for young people, support and housing need for older people, a lack of local employment and related poverty, and fears of families moving out and leaving the village a ‘tumble-town’.

Crucially, however, local morale hasn’t collapsed, in fact quite the reverse: diverse sources – local authority planning documents and estate agent brochures – specifically recognise Creetown as an ‘active community’. Early community stirrings to action, from over a decade ago, include the establishment of the Creetown Heritage Museum and the Creetown Country Music Festival: the latter running for ten years until 2010, winning a Visit Scotland award in 2004, and bringing thousands from around the globe to visit and perform. The Initiative’s first project, in 2001, was a joint management agreement with Forestry Commission Scotland of the local Balloch Wood, and this has continued since through a series of environmental, public art and community participation projects as the Balloch Wood Community Project. Employment, in 2006, of Andrew Ward as the local project worker marked the start of very significant growth since, and the Initiative has accessed a range of public and philanthropic funding: over £1m in the last seven years.

Managing these diverse sources, has allowed the organisation – now with five FT and four PT staff, a hands-on-hands Board, and a significant pool of local volunteer support – to generate a complex, skilled interweaving of initiatives that include:

•          environmental and conservation: community woodlands, the local river, wildlife zones

•          village regeneration: the local park, the town square, an all-weather sports surface

•          community arts: with the primary school, young people and the wider village

•          community events and festivals: many and varied – musical, social, for young and old

•          public art projects: increasing numbers including Cree Baby and recently Ferry-Bell Tower

•          community hall: under development, and to act also as a training facility e.g. for the Duke of Edinburgh Award programme

•          local transport: improving access through Creetown car and scooter clubs

•          ‘green infrastructure’: energy auditing, cycle project and promotion, a community market

•          community infrastructure: development of a football pavilion, bowling club refurbishment.

The Initiative has worked across the different local ‘constituencies’: other community organisations – such as Kirkmabreck Community Council, football club(s), Creetown Bowling Club – and developed the Creetown Building Preservation Trust (with other organisations) to own/manage the community hall; (extensive) community-wide consultation work on the village hall, park regeneration and now a micro-hydro-electric project; joint-working on projects with the local primary school, and, joint-working with local/micro-business on activities and events, in particular the Creetown Gem Rock Museum.

As the range of projects, the numbers of local staff and activists/volunteers, and the extent of funding has grown, so a wider synergy has resulted; one where the many activities support each other and generate shared economic, social and environmental benefits. The key local ‘industry’ of tourism gains from the environmental improvements and the richness of community life, but without coming to dominate. The focus on the three-pronged approach of local economic developments, service provision and community building continues apace. The Initiative undertakes consultancy work with third and public sector organisations in the region to build its own financial stability. It is working to develop a micro-hydro turbine in the local burn, which will significantly boost the organisation’s core income and enable it to invest in community projects – net income anticipated to be almost £20k initially, rising to £190k after 15 years as the loan is paid off. There are plans, too, for a community enterprise centre through community ownership of the old Barholm Arms on the high street, which will provide retail space for local crafts people, a bunkhouse for back-packers, and workshops for rent. The Initiative is active, too, within the Dumfries & Galloway Farmers and Community Markets Association (and running its own monthly market) which promotes community markets across the region to support local tourism, local health and local food production.

This is still ‘early days’, and the scale of activity remains constrained by funding and investment, yet the Initiative’s broad approach, illustrates the effectiveness of community anchors in coordinating complex activities that grow the local economy – one with economic, social and ecological benefits. Indeed, the Initiative is now active in supporting local economic and social developments in four other places in the region, including a community farm in Crocketford.

Such a focus on ‘local economy’ is not, however, a key concern of the current orthodoxy of centralisation and economies of scale. For example in Dumfries and Galloway, a scan of the region’s Proposed Local Development Plan (LDP) suggests a particular focus on concentrating and centralising economic development, housing and services to Dumfries and Galloway’s more ‘urban’ areas to the east: the ‘regional capital’ of Dumfries, larger towns of Annan, Gretna and Lockerbie, and the related ‘M74 corridor’. I would argue, too, that the highly controversial (actual and planned) large scale developments of wind-farms across south-west Scotland, privately-owned and offering limited community benefits, is far from a ‘community-agreed and -owned’ renewable energy strategy concerned for local economic and social development and interests.

This is not to say that the LDP pays no heed to the wider region. Nor that such a centralisation is unique, but instead part of a larger pattern of centralisation across both urban and rural Scotland, and the UK domestic market (and globally), and one that creates an uneven development in which there will be clear ‘winners’ and ‘losers’; those communities to be well-resourced and those that will be marginalised. Several at the Initiative recognised such a wider economic and political ‘marginality’, pointing to their region’s lack of the political muscle (in comparison to urban areas) needed to wrestle: suitable investment for community-led regeneration and a suitable financial ‘playing field’ and support for rural businesses. And, I would add a suitably agreed regional framework for local renewable energy development (hydro and wind) built around community ownership/benefits.

Yet such a centralisation, and a related prioritisation of ‘economies of scale’, is not the only broad strategy available. There are definite signs of alternative ‘decentralist’ approaches and thinking on the horizon, as has been flagged-up by the Scottish Community Alliance e-bulletin in recent months and now by COSLA’s Commission on Strengthening Local Democracy: interim report; with the latter pointing to the need for genuinely local decision-making on resources and services. One fresh approach to public services in England, developed by Bromsgrove & Redditch and Stoke City Councils, and similarly community sector body Locality, is that of putting emphasis on local decision-making and coordination (a ‘local by default’), and keeping the focus on the purposes of local people; so on ‘effectiveness’, rather than on targets and ‘efficiency’ through central control. Likewise, the work of the New Economics Foundation has highlighted the value of focusing on the local economy, and supporting a local multiplier effect through its strategy of Plugging the leaky bucket; with both the community sector and public sector having key roles here. Within Scotland, this concern for local economy, and the role of both public and community sectors in developing it, is increasingly being highlighted too, for instance: in relation to local food production and distribution, as per the Fife Diet’s Manifesto; and in the Reid Foundation’s Common Weal given its recognition of the importance of ‘ownership’ – social/community, public and private (domestic) – in economic and social development.

There are then alternative decentralist models to funding, investment and development on offer which can become part of serious efforts to tackle uneven development (inequalities) in Scotland. Success, however, requires both a capable community sector and a shift in public sector/state culture, strategy and patterns of investment. The complex workings of the Creetown Initiative in leading and coordinating local economic and community development illustrate that such a community sector is certainly achievable. Further, a shift in government thinking away from centralisation, and towards a national community sector strategy, and in regional community-focused investment bodies – like Highlands & Islands Enterprise – across Scotland, would provide a crucial step-change in opportunities for action. While for the local state and public sector, surely it’s time to explore significant investment in the ‘local economy’ and in ‘local-by-default’ service provision, and to learn to draw on the strengths of the community sector in coordinating such local development.

James Henderson is a researcher and has (finally) submitted a PhD at Heriot-Watt University on the community sector.

Author: Cassiltoun Housing Association

For more information on Castlemilk Woodlands click here

Although the past twenty years has seen a significant regeneration of the built environment of Castlemilk, the woodlands which run through the heart of this community have not received the same attention. Since 2010, Cassiltoun Housing Association has led a multi-agency approach which has transformed the woodlands from a no-go area into a green space that brings important health, environmental, social and economic benefits to the local community.

Context

Castlemilk Woodlands cover an area of 30 hectares located around a densely populated housing scheme on the periphery of Glasgow. 13,500 people live in Castlemilk and there is a remarkable concentration of deprivation in this area with 9 of the 16 datazones that make up the area falling within the bottom 5% of Scotland’s most deprived datazones.

Unemployment is high and around 3,500 local people claim benefits, this represents some 39% of the working age population (more than twice the Scottish average). Well over half of these people are in receipt of incapacity or disability benefi ts.

Coronary heart disease is a particular local issue and the area also has above average incidence of hospital admissions for cancer, respiratory disease and drug missuse problems. It is estimated that some 1,732 local residents are being prescribed drugs for anxiety, depression or psychosis. This equates to 13% of the local population, considerably higher than the 8% national average.

Statistics also reveal that lack of educational attainment is a local issue, as only 8% of local school children go on to higher education, compared to 29% in Glasgow as a whole.

Project Background

It was recognised that, as a local greenspace, Castlemilk Woodlands could play a vital role in improving the social, economic and environmental fabric of the area.

A multi-agency partnership was established in 2010 led by Cassiltoun Housing Association with the ambition to provide physical greenspace improvements and to improve and enhance opportunities for people to engage with and use the woodlands to improve their own lives.

The project seeks to deliver on the Scottish Government’s targets to increase employment opportunities, improve health, create a greener community and enhance better life styles and choices.

What it did

By proactively addressing local issues and challenges the project is developing a greenspace asset for the local community. It delivers this by opening up access and increasing opportunities for the community to engage with the woodlands. This helps to break the spiral of decline created through years of neglect and anti-social activity. A website and promotional resources, including a user-friendly map, have been created. These have been successful in inspiring and encouraging local people to discover the greenspace on their doorstep.

The project works to improve local physical health and mental well-being through hosting and promoting a range of programmes and events including, the successful ‘Branching Out’ programme, the ‘Go Play’ childrens’ project, frequent evening health walks and a monthly Cup of Tea in the Park.

With high levels of local unemployment, the Project has also set up a programme which provides local people with opportunities to develop new skills and attain qualifications.

This has been delivered through a two-year employability project (supported through CSGN Development Funds) and through fortnightly volunteering opportunities.

The training and volunteer work has improved lines of sight, upgraded paths and increased maintenance, ensuring that users can access the woodlands and feel safe in their local greenspace.

With two high schools, six primary schools and many nurseries within walking distance, the woodlands provide an excellent opportunity for environmental education. This has been encouraged by the Project which has organised special fun days and educational events. Along with the volunteer work, these events have helped improve the biodiversity in the woodlands by the removal of invasive species and habitat management.

Outcomes

•             Recreated a Community Resource: Through addressing local maintenance and access issues, the woodland has changed from being a sometimes feared short-cut, to being used by the whole community. With increased usage, anti-social behaviour has decreased and the woodland is now used as community resource for or informal recreation, access and education.

•             Improved Local Community Pride: Education and engagement sessions have helped to improve awareness of the biodiversity value of the woodland and informed people of the threats posed by invasive species. This has helped to increased community pride in this rich and varied greenspace.

•             Health Benefits: Encouraging people to take walks in the woodland has increased levels of physical activity. Establishing group walking sessions has also reduced social isolation and increased levels of well-being, particularly amongst older residents.

•             Increased Confidence and Skills: The project has enabled people to increase their levels of self confidence, built community capacity, and improve skills and employment prospects by volunteering, training and employability programmes.

Seven categories, a vast number of nominees, several honourable mentions but there could only be only one winner(in each category). These awards formed part of FRESh 2014. Programme here

LAND CATEGORY

Presented by Anne McGuire MP; Sponsored by Falck

NOMINEES

Ardentinny Community Trust – Glenfinart Walled Garden ; Callander Community Friendship Garden Ravenscraig Community Gardens; Greener Kirkcaldy; North Kelvinside Children’s Meadow-The Children’s Wood; Ochils Landscape Partnership; Woodland Trust – save our woods; Sleat Community Trust – Forest Enterprise; Transition Stirling’s Wood for All project; Assynt Foundation

WINNERS

Honourable Mention

Transition Stirling’s Wood for All project. This project is working hard to engage local communities in woodland skills, including woodland management and looking at long term potential of establishing local woodfuel supply. It connects people with the environment and where their energy/heating comes from, and fosters an appreciation and respect of woodlands that will have a ripple effect through communities.

Inspiration in Sustainable Land

 Greener Kirkcaldy, Edible Landscape Project.  Our new Edible Landscape project in Dunnikier Park is the first of its kind in the UK! It’s a partnership with the landowner Fife Council and has great support in the community. We’re turning a previously neglected part of a public park into a huge forest garden, using a permaculture approach to create a system rich in biodiversity and food. Russell has been working this winter and spring with volunteers, Scouts and pupils from the local school to plant trees and shrubs, and the next work-days will involve mulching large areas so that we can plant the herb layer next spring

TRANSPORT CATEGORY

Presented by Glen Bennett, EAE Ltd, Sponsored by Moorcar

Greener Kircaldy; Edinburgh Festival of Cycling; Greener Leith; Sustrans; Stirling Cycle Hub, run by Forth Environment Link.  ; Transition Black Isle – Our Million Miles project ; Trossachs Areas Community Transport Ltd.

WINNERS

Honourable Mention

Greener Leith. We’ve given away 50 recycled bikes, trained 11 local people in accredited bike maintenance and leadership, organised bike rides and walking groups, improved local bike parking facilities, distributed thousands of local travel maps and provided free bike maintenance services to more than 100 local people.

Inspiration in Sustainable Transport

Stirling Cycle Hub, run by Forth Environment Link.  The vision of the Stirling Cycle Hub is to work towards a healthier, greener future by encouraging and supporting more people to cycle.  It opened in May 2013 at Stirling Train Station and has had over 3000 visits.  The hub acts both as an information centre for everything related to cycling, but also as a source of encouragement and inspiration to those less confident. Specifically the hub provides information on route planning, offers free maps and brochures, signposts people to local bike retailers and services, provides a bike hire scheme, and organises a range of cycling events aimed at supporting a wide range of cyclists.

ENERGY CATEGORY

Presented by Cllr Mark Ruskell, Sponsored by Burness Paull

NOMINEES

SCENE; Applecross Energy Efficiency; Coigach Community Development Company; Huntly & District Development Trust; Harlaw Hydro; Greener Kirkcaldy; LEAP – Lochwinnoch (Scott Duncan); Lochbroom Woodfuels; Kirknewton Community Development Trust; Callander Community Hydro Project; The Factory Skatepark; Transition Stirling’s ‘Wood for All’ project; Twechar Environmental Training Project ; West Whitlawburn Housing Co-operative

WINNERS

Honourable Mention

Kirknewton Community Development Trust- Joint Venture WIndfarm Investment using FDT model – Kirnewton Community Development Trust – for negotiating one of the best wind farm community benefit / investment deals in Scotland for their community if the windfarm is granted (with coverage in Sunday Herald), arranging an independent community consultation on the wind farm development – showing best practice on windfarm community consulation, opening a zero energy development owned by the community and arranging for a report to be shared with all communities for potential hydro projects throughout the forestry estate

Inspiration in Community Energy

Callander Community Hydro Ltd. This projects takes community energy projects to a new level as not only does the community own the scheme and all profit generated will be invested in community projects, but the community are also raising some of the funds locally through a community bond to pay for the build stage of the scheme (along with recently announced investment from Triodos bank). Callander community hydro limited was set up to deliver an exciting community hydro electric project and has taken this from just an idea to reality!  With no developer involved the project has raised finance through 3 funders and all the profits will be gifted back to the community for local projects.  The project is being built along the route of the Stank Burn on Ben Ledi in the Trossach’s & Loch Lomond National park. The project’s turbine is being manufactured and construction work on the intake, pipeline and turbine house is about to start. Power will be exported back to the grid and the community will earn revenue from selling this and from the FIT’s tariff. Completion is expected in the autumn

FOOD CATEGORY

Presented by Chef Neil Forbes, Sponsored by Vegware

NOMINEES

Ardnamurchan Garden Produce and Community Garden; Bruntsfield Dig-In; Bute Produce, Fyne Futures; Earlston Orchard Town  ; The Seed Truck – Fife Diet; Grow Forth Stirling, Forth Environment Link; Greener Kirkcaldy; Kirknewton Allotments Association ; Neil Forbes – Cafe St Honore; Pillars of Hercules Organic Farm; The Fintry Inn; The Mondo Loco Foundation

WINNERS

Honourable Mention

The Mondo Loco Foundation –The Mondo Loco Foundation is a new charity which is encouraging sustainable growth within communities through food, sport and education to promote health, advance learning and fight poverty in Scotland. They also link with the Scotland Malawi partnership to share agricultural knowledge and skills. Based in Midlothian, they are currently working to establish edible gardens within primary schools in Bonnyrigg, and are leading a youth community garden project in Gorebridge in order to educate the younger generation the importance of food security. They lead their projects with amazing energy and enthusiasm which has inspired many young people in the community.

Inspiration in Sustainable Food

The Seed Truck –Fife Diet is a hands on, innovative approach to inspire community groups, schools, start up growing groups or indeed anyone with an interest in sowing and growing. The project aims to ‘sow the seeds of a better food system’ offering practical workshops based on food sovereignty and climate change. The team involved is a diverse group of gardeners, artists, designers and storytellers who are all passionate about growing, inspiring and educating. The Seed Truck is a national initiative and does regular tours the length and breadth of Scotland, such as the current ‘Silver Bough- a cultural conversation about apples’.

ALL-ROUND GOOD EGG

Presented by Bruce Crawford, Sponsored by Fintry Development Trust

NOMINEES

Action for Change (Scotland) Ltd ; The Ochils Landscape Partnership; Dunbar Local Resilience Action Plan and Household & School Canny Challenge; Save Our Woods – (Hen Anderson); Greener Kirkcaldy; Beith Trust; Kirknewton Community Development Trust; Oban Phoenix Cinema; The Children’s Wood; PEDAL- Portobello ; Transition Stirling

WINNERS

Honourable Mention

PEDAL-Porty – Tom has refused to give up on his dream of securing ownership of a community wind turbine for his community of Portobello, Edinburgh. His relentless volunteered effort has seen him on his third attempt as PEDAL attempts to develop a project on private land, in partnership with Greener Leith. Tom deserves great credit for his perseverance and unstintingly positive attitude.

‘All-Round Good Egg’

The Ochils Landscape Partnership aims to increase access to the hills and glens of the Ochils, improve the quality of local rivers and restore parts of the historic built landscape. The project provides opportunities for community involvement and volunteering to tell the story of the area’s cultural, social and industrial heritage. It aims to enhance the lives of people in the Hillfoots and also to increase visitors to the area.  The OLP has over 370 regular volunteers and has successfully run the “Ochils Festival” for the past two years with the 2014 event this coming June bigger and better than before.  They have an ongoing programme of projects and activities involving Hillfoots Primary schools, community groups and individuals including geo-caching, guided walks, establishment of The Hillfoots Diamond Jubilee Way, Kirkyards trail and Devon trail, mobile app, online Virtual Visitor Centre, control of non-native invasive species, river bank stabilisation, seminars, craft demonstrations, pond dipping and foraging.  This year sees the return of the Tartan Ball which was originally held in the 1840s and will offer an opportunity to experience and savour authentic Scottish hospitality in a stunning setting at the foot of the Ochil Hills.  The OLP is now looking to the future and hope to expand their activities to maintain local community engagement, promote the the Ochil Hills and River Devon locally, nationally and internationally to provide a lasting legacy for generations to come.

FRESh Egg (Newcomer)

Presented by Alyn Smith MEP, Sponsored by Alyn Smith MEP

NOMINEES

Factory Skatepark; Balerno Harlaw Hydro – Balerno Village Trust.   ; Bruntsfield Dig-In; Dingwall Wind Energy COOP; Jura Community Stores ; Creative in Callander, ; Recyke-a-Bike; Scottish Wild Beaver Group ; The Himalayan Centre for Art and Culture.

WINNERS

Honourable Mention

Balerno Harlaw Hydro – Balerno Village Trust.   For facing the challenges of the hydro project, overcoming those challenges and sharing good practice.

FRESh Egg

Scottish Wild Beaver Group – “Scottish Wild Beaver Group, was founded to support the campaign to save the beavers on Tayside from being trapped and removed from the wild. With strong local and international support, working through the use of social media and the press, especially the Blairgowrie local newspaper , it succeeded in overturning the official policy, and saving the beavers which are now being monitored by SNH. SWBG has also launched an education programme making presentations to dozens of Tayside primary schools and local groups, raising awareness of this beneficial and charismatic native species returned to our countryside.”

Author: IACD

Community is the Answer 

Financial support for UK participants announced. See copy of the programme here

We are delighted to announce that Education Scotland and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have confirmed some funding to enable people living and working in the United Kingdom who would otherwise not be able to do so (such as unwaged or low-income volunteers) to attend the conference. Subsidised places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. For more information, contact us: info@communityistheanswer.org

Author: Will Hutton. The Guardian

Suddenly, there is a new economist making waves – and he is not on the right. At the conference of the Institute of New Economic Thinking in Toronto last week, Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century got at least one mention at every session I attended. You have to go back to the 1970s and Milton Friedman for a single economist to have had such an impact.

Like Friedman, Piketty is a man for the times. For 1970s anxieties about inflation substitute today’s concerns about the emergence of the plutocratic rich and their impact on economy and society. Piketty is in no doubt, as he indicates in an interview in today’s Observer New Review, that the current level of rising wealth inequality, set to grow still further, now imperils the very future of capitalism. He has proved it.

It is a startling thesis and one extraordinarily unwelcome to those who think capitalism and inequality need each other. Capitalism requires inequality of wealth, runs this right-of-centre argument, to stimulate risk-taking and effort; governments trying to stem it with taxes on wealth, capital, inheritance and property kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Thus Messrs Cameron and Osborne faithfully champion lower inheritance taxes, refuse to reshape the council tax and boast about the business-friendly low capital gains and corporation tax regime.

Piketty deploys 200 years of data to prove them wrong. Capital, he argues, is blind. Once its returns – investing in anything from buy-to-let property to a new car factory – exceed the real growth of wages and output, as historically they always have done (excepting a few periods such as 1910 to 1950), then inevitably the stock of capital will rise disproportionately faster within the overall pattern of output. Wealth inequality rises exponentially.

The process is made worse by inheritance and, in the US and UK, by the rise of extravagantly paid “super managers”. High executive pay has nothing to do with real merit, writes Piketty – it is much lower, for example, in mainland Europe and Japan. Rather, it has become an Anglo-Saxon social norm permitted by the ideology of “meritocratic extremism”, in essence, self-serving greed to keep up with the other rich. This is an important element in Piketty’s thinking: rising inequality of wealth is not immutable. Societies can indulge it or they can challenge it.

Inequality of wealth in Europe and US is broadly twice the inequality of income – the top 10% have between 60% and 70% of all wealth but merely 25% to 35% of all income. But this concentration of wealth is already at pre-First World War levels, and heading back to those of the late 19th century, when the luck of who might expect to inherit what was the dominant element in economic and social life. There is an iterative interaction between wealth and income: ultimately, great wealth adds unearned rentier income to earned income, further ratcheting up the inequality process.

The extravagances and incredible social tensions of Edwardian England, belle epoque France and robber baron America seemed for ever left behind, but Piketty shows how the period between 1910 and 1950, when that inequality was reduced, was aberrant. It took war and depression to arrest the inequality dynamic, along with the need to introduce high taxes on high incomes, especially unearned incomes, to sustain social peace. Now the ineluctable process of blind capital multiplying faster in fewer hands is under way again and on a global scale. The consequences, writes Piketty, are “potentially terrifying”.

For a start, almost no new entrepreneurs, except one or two spectacular Silicon Valley start-ups, can ever make sufficient new money to challenge the incredibly powerful concentrations of existing wealth. In this sense, the “past devours the future”. It is telling that the Duke of Westminster and the Earl of Cadogan are two of the richest men in Britain. This is entirely by virtue of the fields in Mayfair and Chelsea their families owned centuries ago and the unwillingness to clamp down on the loopholes that allow the family estates to grow.

Anyone with the capacity to own in an era when the returns exceed those of wages and output will quickly become disproportionately and progressively richer. The incentive is to be a rentier rather than a risk-taker: witness the explosion of buy-to-let. Our companies and our rich don’t need to back frontier innovation or even invest to produce: they just need to harvest their returns and tax breaks, tax shelters and compound interest will do the rest.

Capitalist dynamism is undermined, but other forces join to wreck the system. Piketty notes that the rich are effective at protecting their wealth from taxation and that progressively the proportion of the total tax burden shouldered by those on middle incomes has risen. In Britain, it may be true that the top 1% pays a third of all income tax, but income tax constitutes only 25% of all tax revenue: 45% comes from VAT, excise duties and national insurance paid by the mass of the population.

As a result, the burden of paying for public goods such as education, health and housing is increasingly shouldered by average taxpayers, who don’t have the wherewithal to sustain them. Wealth inequality thus becomes a recipe for slowing, innovation-averse, rentier economies, tougher working conditions and degraded public services. Meanwhile, the rich get ever richer and more detached from the societies of which they are part: not by merit or hard work, but simply because they are lucky enough to be in command of capital receiving higher returns than wages over time. Our collective sense of justice is outraged.

The lesson of the past is that societies try to protect themselves: they close their borders or have revolutions – or end up going to war. Piketty fears a repeat. His critics argue that with higher living standards resentment of the ultra-rich may no longer be as great – and his data is under intense scrutiny for mistakes. So far it has all held up.

Nor does it seem likely that human beings’ inherent sense of justice has been suspended. Of course the reaction plays out differently in different eras: I suspect some of the energy behind Scottish nationalism is the desire to build a country where toxic wealth inequalities are less indulged than in England.

The solutions – a top income tax rate of up to 80%, effective inheritance tax, proper property taxes and, because the issue is global, a global wealth tax – are currently inconceivable.

But as Piketty says, the task of economists is to make them more conceivable. Capital certainly does that.

Author: Rob Hopkins

It’s time for a rant about SACAT.  “About what?” you might most reasonably cry.  ‘Semi Attended Customer Activated Terminals’, that’s what.  In plain English, it’s those self checkout things that are taking over shops up and down the land.  In 2008 there were 92,600 such units in use worldwide, by the end of this year it is expected to top 430,000.  In the UK, 32 million shoppers now use them every week, over one third of Tesco’s store transactions every week are self checkout. I recently went to WHSmith at St Panchras station in London, the first shop I’ve been into that is 100% self checkout.  No staff.  I turned around and walked back out again. 

It’s bad enough on the occasions when I visit my local Co-operative store, who have now just two tills with actual human beings.  The rest is all self-checkout.  According to Geoffrey Barraclough of BT Expedite, who installed the system in the WHSmith store at Kings Cross, such systems are great because because they:

Enable shoppers to pay for goods quickly by making more till points available is a proven means for retailers to help boost footfall, service and sales levels”. 

That may be the case, but surely the main reason is that they need to employ less staff and thereby make more profit?  Whenever I go into a shop which has self-checkout, I refuse to use it.  I make a point of telling whoever is at the till that I am refusing to use it because I don’t want even more staff to lose their jobs.  It’s a solidarity thing.  But when I go to a shop that doesn’t even give you the choice, sorry, they just lost a customer. 

A few years ago I did a series of oral history interviews with people, asking for their memories of Totnes in the 1940s and 50s.  One woman told me of her experience of doing the week’s shopping:

I used to go to the grocer’s and I could sit down, lovely.  They’d go through your list and say yes, yes, we’ve got some new whatever it is, would you like to taste some, you’d have a little snippet of cheese or something, great, yes, we’ll have that.  Now we’ve got a tin of broken biscuits, but they’re not too bad, half price you see, would you like them? As soon as you put a biscuit in your mouth its broken isn’t it?!  Then they’d say “now Mrs Langford you’re going to the butchers yes yes and going to get some fish?  Yes yes, and paraffin?  Yes yes, and they used to say to me now bring any parcels in, we’ll put it in the box with your groceries, and bring the lot up for you.  And they did you see. 

When I go shopping, I want to interact with people.  Even the act of popping in to buy a newspaper involves a few words, a “how you doing?” or even just a “thanks”.  It’s interaction, it’s communication, it’s the glue that sticks us together.  A study in the US looking at why people use farmers markets found that ‘social interaction’ was one of the key reasons, people who shopped there having 10 times more conversations than people shopping in supermarkets.  It quoted one shopper as saying:

“You end up talking a lot more to other people than you do in a grocery store.  I mean, typically you go to the grocery store and you don’t talk to anyone.  Even the checkout people, I mean now you don’t even need to see the checkout person, you can just go through the automated line”.

And if I’m checking myself out, I am doing the shop’s business for them.  Not content with assaulting high streets with out-of-town shops, and then moving onto those self same declining high streets to add “vibrancy” to them, they have now, with most of the opposition neutralised (97% of all UK groceries are now sold through just 8,000 supermarket outlets), they are getting us to do the checking out for them!  What next?  Stacking the shelves?  Sweeping the floor on our way out?  Perhaps giving the bathrooms a lick of paint?

We wouldn’t expect to do those things unpaid, so why doing the check out?  It’s not as though they offer you a choice whereby if you check yourself out they give you a few percent off your bill. 

Of course, many people might say “actually Hopkins I rather like going shopping and not having to talk to anyone”, but for me that’s tragic.  Think forward.  Imagine if we get to the stage where every business, in order to remain competitive with the staff-less chain stores, installs self checkouts?  Imagine the day when you can do all your week’s shopping without ever speaking to anyone.  Something is lost, something as fundamental to our wellbeing as being able to hear the birdsong on a Spring morning.  As hearing the sound of children playing.  Civility, community, humanity, all start to unravel. 

So I say “no more!”  Shun the soul-less cash extracting electronic leeches!  Refuse to spend any money unless a human being is involved!  Turn around, walk out and walk on.  The kind of world we want our children to inherit is being shaped by the choices and the decisions we make today every time we go shopping.  Choose community and people and conversation over blatant money-grabbing and unemployment generation.

Or even better, you might use them for a month or so, keep a note of how much time you spend operating their checkout system, and send them a bill for your time, charging them the Living Wage for your time (which is, by the way, £8.80 in London and £7.65 an hour elsewhere).  Let’s see how they like that.

Author: Staff writers

More than 20 charities, including the Trussell Trust, the Child Poverty Action Group and Church Action on Poverty have signed a statement accusing the UK of violating the basic right to food.

The action follows a letter to the government from 600 Christian clergy and bishops seeking urgent action on the scandal of foodbanks and food poverty, a smiler statement today from Jewish leaders, and the nationwide End Hunger Fast – backed by the beliefs and values think-tank Ekklesia and many others – in solidarity with 900,000 people going hungry or short of food.

“It is our opinion that the UK has violated the human right to food and breached international law.

“This state of affairs is both avoidable and unnecessary. We call on the Government to take immediate action to ensure that the no one in the UK is denied their most basic right to sufficient and adequate food,” the common statement says.

A public vigil was held opposite Parliament at 6pm yesterday (16 April 2014) by members of the End Hunger Fast campaign.

Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, Senior Rabbi at Movement for Reform Judaism were among those present.

The Barrow-Cadbury trust has backed the report ‘Going Hungry? The Human Right to Food in the UK’, from the new Just Fair Consortium, which was launched recently.

This sets out the situation facing those on the breadline in austerity Britain, and the case for change.

The UK government and the Department of Work and Pensions are continuing to deny that there is a problem, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Simon Barrow, co-director of the Christian think-tank Ekklesia, said: “The growing gap between the UK government’s complacent rhetoric about positive economic indicators and the demonstrable reality of food poverty points towards the need for a change of heart as well as policy in Britain today.

“Faith and civic leaders are right to press for radical change. Welfare and public spending cuts, the lower income wage squeeze, underemployment, youth joblessness, child and family poverty, and a recovery built on consumption and benefitting mostly the more prosperous — all this is leaving many people in dire straights.

“The answer is not top-down decisions made by millionaire cabinet members and remote Whitehall departments, but the practical engagement of people living at the sharp end in remaking social and economic policy for the benefit of the majority.”

* Report: ‘Going Hungry? The Human Right to Food in the UK’ (*.PDF Adobe Acrobat document):http://www.barrowcadbury.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Going-Hungry-…

* More on End Hunger Fast from Ekklesia: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/endhungerfast