Posts filed under 'Community politics'
Not many people saw it, but last night was a good night for community action. While would-be leaders dominated the television screen, a political drama was quietly unfolding in a Leith community centre which confounds all those fears of immigrants.
Members of Swietlica at the first performance of Change, a play timed to coincide with the election campaign. Picture by Kasia Raszewska
This is where campaigning politicians ought to be. Here’s community spirit in action in the Fort Community Wing where the Polish drop-in club, Swietlica, works tirelessly to bring people together – celebrating Christmas and St Andrews Night, fundraising for good causes, and sometimes throwing parties just for the fun of it.
So it wasn’t surprising that Swietlica hosted the first production of a brave new drama by the Leith community activist theatre group, ACTive Inquiry. Change is a political play (that’s political with a small p) exploring what change means and how we can make it happen. This is deliberately timed to coincide with the election campaign.
And it wasn’t surprising that the small audience representing Scottish, Polish, Indian and English communities wholeheartedly entered into the spirit of a form of theatre which demands audience participation. Elsewhere, across the UK, the media was doing its best to stir up ill-informed fear and resentment of strangers, feeding on Gordon Brown’s unscripted reactions to Gillian Duffy’s East European question. Inside a small Edinburgh primary school, some of those strangers were showing just why Leith is possibly the most vibrant and interesting part of Scotland’s capital.
The play ended with a competition for a project to change real life for the better. And the clear winners of a small cash prize to make it happen were Maria and Marek for an idea that costs almost nothing to put into action. The other two ideas were good too: a leaflet campaign to promote a club for single mothers and a public event to excite support for pedestrianising The Shore in Leith. And they could still happen. But on an old fashioned show of hands most votes went to the smiles.
Smiling Leith simply asks everyone to smile three times a day to a complete stranger. 
Try it, urged a smiling Maria and Marek, it can make you and someone else feel happier. “I don’t mean a grin,” adds Maria, “I mean a smile from the heart.” (They won £50 towards a poster campaign to make it happen).
I got home just in time to catch the end of the leaders’ debate. It seemed more contrived and controlled than ever. Perhaps saddest of all, not one of them seem able to risk speaking from the heart to acknowledge the great benefits of immigration. Maybe we should invite Mrs Duffy to meet the wonderful volunteers of Swietlica. And watch a performance of Change by ACTive Inquiry. (see more on Leith Open Space)
Audience participation: Mridu, Marek and Marcin (standing) accept a challenge to change the course of events in the play.
April 30th, 2010
Welcome to Broughton Street, open for business despite the tramworks. It’s the place to come whether you want a leisurely meal or a quick coffee, whether you are looking for upmarket sausages or good wines, second hand books or frilly knickers, organic fruit, vegetables or ( ahem) erotica. On a wet March morning there is a buzz in the air but a big cloud on the horizon. Tesco Express is coming.
Despite letters of protest from local MSPs, city councillors, businesses, heritage groups and residents such as myself, the city council planning committee has approved Tesco Express Group plans for Picardy Place.
On paper the plans look harmless: a new shop front in Picardy Place and ‘plant louvres’ at the back in Broughton Street Lane. My objection (as I wrote for the excellent Broughton Spurtle) was based on evidence of what happens to an area once Tesco moves in – when local shops close a sense of community often dies with them.
There’s plenty of good evidence for this and it is worth looking at the Tescopoly and Tesco Town websites Across the UK, communities (not least Paisley, Portobello, Inverness and Milngavie ) are rebelling against the relentless spread of supermarkets which destroy local character and sense of community. More than that, a New Economics Foundation study, The New Economics: A Bigger Picture, found a connection between the presence of Wal-Mart and low voting turn-out in communities.
Even so, the planning committee could find no reason to reject Tesco’s plans because they were deemed no threat to the fabric and appearance of a listed building in the World Heritage Site (those ‘plant louvres’ being the huge metal sheets that disguise stuff like ventilation). There is currently nothing in planning regulations that permits the committee to consider measurable damage to local businesses or less easily measured quality of life.
In fact, it did not even go to committee despite cross-party opposition. As Angela Blacklock a local Labour councillor explains:
“Every Councillor from the Central and
Leith Walk ward put out a joint statement opposing Tesco’s planning
application but our comments were not ‘material’ to the application
which was very straight forward and with Council policy and so it went
through without going to committee.”
Where does that leave local traders? Thanks to Tesco there is now a Broughton Street Traders Association but they are resigned to the inevitable. “Tesco is off the agenda”, says Patrick Crawshaw of the Bakehouse, an active founding member along with Lucy Tanat-Jones of Organic Pleasures (which does not sell fruit and veg as my pal Celia innocently supposed).
The traders association is now concentrating on creating a website to promote every shop in the street – raising awareness of the wonderful diversity of the ‘village’ – so they can take advantage of council plans for Picardy Place developments, whatever and whenever that may be.
Open for business? Quirky independent shops and quality traders like Crombie’s are likely to survive the numbing blandness of cut-price ‘convenience’ shopping. But small corner shops near the top of Broughton Street are vulnerable. I hope we can mobilise public support for a campaign to change Scottish planning regulations (click here for the Friends of the Earth campaign in England and Wales) and monitor the effects of Tesco on the local shops.
After all Tesco would not be coming here at all if small shops had not proved there is money to be made in the area. As they say: ‘every little helps’.
March 26th, 2010
Enlightened city had let you be
till Mammon’s grasp said ‘damn the tree’;
So far the trees are still there: a splash of green between grey buildings in a grey street. Otherwise only cars and traffic signs add colour to one of the posher parts of Edinburgh. Planning permission for a new building on the ‘unfinished’ edge of the tenement threatens the trees. I am printing a protest poem by Gordon Peters, one of the neighbouring residents, because it says so clearly what I feel: city life is also about what happens in the space between buildings. Why fill every gap?
In both poetry and prose Gordon Peters has supported a campaign against a decision to build a new home in Hart Street. The Planning Committee gave permission anyway to Richard Murphy, an architect whose work includes Dundee Contemporary Art Centre, and whose practice aims to produce “architecture equally of its place and of its time”.
The no-hopers who post comments on local newspaper websites interpreted the protests as opposition to any modern building in the elegant New Town. But you only have to read the articulate summary of the Hart Street Resdent’s case to see that is not the point at all. Here is a brief extract:
‘ The New Town was built with the intention of there being open space, trees & gardens; allowing new houses to be crammed into little gaps between Georgian buildings & onto small gardens is undermining the style & quality of the original plan. There is no shortage of housing or office space in Edinburgh’s New Town area; indeed there is a forest of estate agents’ signs offering property for sale or rent. Why was planning permission granted without there being a genuine, long-term need for development; & what is the result?’
I heard Gordon read his poem at a party and asked if I could publish it on my blog. Intriguingly just a few days later I saw the poem pinned to the wall of another architects’ office – Gaia Architects – who just happen to occupy the old Hugenot Monastery at the back of the gardens where the trees grow. I was there on totally different business, to gather information about inspiring and sustainable use of timber in innovative new Scottish architecture, so we didn’t talk about the campaign. Besides, the poem is not about the building. It’s about the tree – and what green space gives to the city. Since I took these pictures there is just a little less green as the cotoneaster and ivy have been cut down, perhaps in preparation for next year’s building. The poem raises doubts about the future of the trees:
Tenement Tree
In blossom or leaf, or russet or bare,
you stand as a sentinel, one of a pair;
your sister along is safer a bit
though developer’s shovel would spew her with grit.
No harm have you done but only sustain
life all around as you drink in the rain,
your listing is said to hold off the axe,
but not from a Council whose ethics are lax.
You’ve heard the yells of women haunted
sheltered Huguenots not wanted,
seen the proud elm yield to the saw,
kept blackbird and squirrel in your maw;
a doomed pigeon you kept on stance
as the peregrine struck just like a lance;
while brambles and currants beside bore fruit,
guarding the tenement you took root.
Enlightened city had let you be
till Mammon’s grasp said ‘damn the tree’;
the planning officer did his best
neighbours rallied, to the provost a pest;
but burgesses whose icon is a tram
determined to build seeing gold in a pan,
yet recession’s cold draft would see gold turn to dust
and you dear tree saved, to await further lust.
Gordon Peters April 2009 [you can hear Gordon at local poetry 'slams' in The Strathmore in Iona Streeet Leith. Check The Skinny and The List for details]
September 18th, 2009
Just for the record, I did write a letter to Edinburgh’s Head of Planning to register my concern over Tesco’s plans to open a new store at 8 Picardy Place. As it happens I wrote it the same day I went to see the Edinburgh premiere of the Age of Stupid. Make of that what you will.
By the time I posted the letter I didn’t have much hope that it would make any difference. But I had discovered the power of Twitter. Greener Leith supportively tweeted my Facebook rage against the mighty Tesco and suddenly there was a flow of traffic to my blog that I am not at all used to. Some left comments, a few made very good points but to my amazement there was a depressing number in favour of the superstore colonising our neighbourhood. Or, almost as bad, couldn’t care one way or the other.
I have a new pessimism about the ways and wisdom of humanity since seeing the Age of Stupid and discovering that 60% of the population do not believe climate change is a man-made problem. With the chance of man-made solutions.
But maybe all is not yet lost. Every time I look at the ‘dashboard’ of my blog I see two stories battling it out for top place. So far Cafe Culture Thrives in Broughton is still well ahead of Stop Tesco Destroying Broughton. What would you make of that?
[See also Crumbs of Comfort]
March 25th, 2009
Update March 26: Tesco is coming to Broughton, what will happen to local shops? See Broughton awaits Tesco Express
Can we stop Tesco dominating the landscape? I feel strongly that we can and must. But we will need to be quick. Letters to protest against yet another Tesco store in the Broughton area have to reach the council’s head of planning by 20 March. That’s just over a week to raise a campaign against wanton destruction of local character and independence.
Why on earth would we need another Tesco store in this area? There is already the Tesco supermarket at Canonmills and a Tesco Metro in Leith. But Britain’s biggest trade guzzler (Tesco reports pre-tax profits of £1.45bn) has swooped on the opportunity of Reid Furniture store closing in Picardy Place.
That’s a death threat to the diversity of local shops that give Broughton a real buzz and a true sense of place: Crombie’s one of the best butchers in Edinburgh, Mr Fishy, the Deli, and many small, friendly corner shops.
But we don’t have to let it happen. A campaign is already growing. On his way to the station this morning Ray was handed a flyer by the young man serving him in the newsagent. He emailed it to me from the train and said get blogging.
Our vigilant local newsletter, Spurtle, is also urging local residents to write to the council. According to the Spurtle message on the excellent new EH7 Noticeboard.
Tesco’s have applied for planning permission at 8 Picardy Place (Ref. 09/00385/FUL). They are intending the installation of a ’shopfront to Picardy Place, plant louvres to Broughton St Lane, and interior fitout’ on 3 floors. The target determination date is 17 April 2009 so letters of objection will have to be sent in SOON.
Spurtle editor, Alan McIntosh, says they will not lead a campaign against Tesco but they will report (and therefore support) one and they have already alerted local city councillors, MPs and MSPs.
It’s not going to be easy. Tesco does not need to apply for change of use to open their store. But when people unite to combine well-informed argument with political weight they can stop the behemoth retailer in its tracks. A good cause for Greener Leith maybe?
The point about architectural heritage is worth making. We could campaign to develop Picardy Place so that it is a handsome gateway to the city centre. Better options for the old furniture store would be a new arts centre. Or how about a whole foods organic indoor market which would complement rather than compete with local shops?
Take a look at Whole Foods in Chicago for an example of style, substance and retailing success. Now, isn’t this an opportunity for Real Foods (crammed with good stuff but cramped) to expand into 21st century credit-crunch, climate change reality? Tesco should have no future in this environment.
[PS added 13 March: In response to the point made by Tony Leach I have removed my original opening sentence, referring to 'Tesco outrage' although I am still outraged at this real threat to the viability of our local independent shops. I will certainly write to MP MSPS and councillors using measured reasoning]
March 11th, 2009
Can art change society? Here’s news of an exciting new community theatre project in Leith which aims to get people actively involved in society by taking part in art. No theatre experience needed but an enquiring mind is useful.
It sounds like a theatrical version of Leith Open Space, the voluntary group I am involved in, which is why Gavin Crichton got in touch. Gavin is director of the very innovative ACTive INquiry Theatre Company, who have just secured lottery funding to run Space workshops in Leith exploring what ‘public space’ is and what it should be.
People taking part will help shape a brand new piece of theatre for performance in April and at Leith Festival in June. What a pity the workshop clashes with the women’s event I am helping to organise the very same day (Saturday 14 March).
For me art is now by far the most powerful way of engaging with people. Politicians are too afraid of confronting prejudice, too fearful of public opinion to tackle big questions. (How do we achieve fairer taxes, rights for migrant workers in a global economy, meet both opportunities and threats of climate change…)
In Brazil, according to the ACTive website, Theatre of the Oppressed, uses theatre as “rehearsal for reality”. As Gavin explains: “We work in a type of theatre called Forum Theatre which actively engages the audience by enabling them to question what is happening in a play and even change its outcome!”
And not just the play. When spectators become actors the play can become reality. Incredibly in Rio de Janeiro, laws have been changed with the help of Legislative Theatre, a pioneering project developed by Augusto Boal, artist, activist and founder of Theatre of the Oppressed.
Could this be Edinburgh’s future? Seems unlikely right now but one of the many things I like about Leith is the claim that it is “twinned with Rio de Janeiro.”
ACTive INquiry in action
Space workshops are free, from 1-5pm, Saturday 14 March in St James Hall, 12 St Johns Place, Letih. For more information or to book a place: email gavin@activeinquiry.co.uk phone 0771 4321 629 or check the website www.activeinquiry.co.uk
[a slightly different version of this blog is also on the Leith Open Space website]
March 10th, 2009
Last night’s meeting at Out of the Blue was cold. Like everyone else Celia and I kept our coats on and held on to hot drinks as long as we could. But the discussion at the Food Summit was so heart warming it reinforced my hunch that food (or how we grow and eat it) offers the best way out of the mess we are making of the global economy and the planet.
So while the government was deciding to coke up the atmosphere by building a third Heathrow runway a mixed bunch of allotment holders, backgreen gardeners, social entrepreneurs, community activists and voluntary groups were peeling off their gloves to vote for greener ways of growing and selling healthy local food in Edinburgh. Or to be precise, Leith. (See Greener Leith Food Summit report for fuller list of action points.)
The Food Summit organised by the very entrepreneurial Greener Leith.
Hugh Raven, Director of the Soil Association in Scotland, urged us to grow our own (organic) food or at least buy local. Pointing out the carbon footprint of intensively reared pork and chicken, he suggested we eat less but better meat. But perhaps it was the activities of small local schemes that brought most hope.
In the tea break Celia and I stamped our feet and marvelled at all this energy and enterprise; so many local groups working on low, sometimes no, budgets to improve quality of life in their neighbourhood. This is what active citizenship means but (quick rant) grassroots do need help from above to help them grow.
Perhaps that’s why so many votes went to idea that the council should employ or fund (probably not quite the same ) a Community Development Officer to help local community gardens, food co-ops etc develop their full potential.
The one with most dots is for Leith Farmer’s Market
I confess I have a personal interest in all this (not just because I am on the committee of Greener Leith who organised the Food Summit ). The recession seems the ideal incentive to change the way we do things. For months now I have fantasised about schemes that would enable people to eat better, spend less and get more fun out of cooking. So we could reduce our impact on the environment, get fitter, happier and create sustainable jobs (for me too please!) all at the same time.
Feed Four for a Fiver seemed a good slogan to sell to farmer’s markets, local shops or even supermarkets. Too late. They’re all at it now. Jamie coaxes customers to Feed a Family for A Fiver at Sainsbury’s. Asda, Morrisons and even Waitrose are all playing different variations of the same theme.
Anyway, noting the growing number of food co-op schemes in my neighbourhood which could make good stories for Leith Open Space website I went along to Out of the Blue last night. The response to the meeting was extraordinary and I hope collaborative community action will come of it. Just for the record, my votes went to the community development officer, a community orchard and a farmer’s market for Leith.
But I haven’t totally abandoned that idea of feeding four for a fiver.
This is a great farm shop, I hope to write more about it very soon.
January 15th, 2009
I took a second look, “That is plastic isn’t it?” The answer was swift and smart, “Yes, no man was hurt in the making of this display.”
Setting up my stall at the Student Festival of Learning in Edinburgh’s Telford College yesterday I soon realised that I was a bit short of merchandise. Thanks to Tommy I had the biggest and boldest banner in the hall and I had put together a nice display of bright leaflets about intercultural arts events, voluntary work and community gardens. Then I discovered Leith Open Space was sandwiched between Young Scot and Safe Sex and, damn it, they both had a much more interesting selection of freebies.
“It’s all about give aways,” said one of the Young Scots sympathetically as a queue gathered in front of his stall to pick up the very snazzy triangular plastic markers I was casting a covetous eye over. Then I looked to my left and saw a crowd of young women lining up to examine a giant condom and (in comparison) a rather small plastic penis.
I sent a surreal text to family and friends. “Amazing”, Tom texts back, “take a picture”. So
I did and got rather a good one of Ms Safe Sex sipping a pot noodle but sadly she told me they are not allowed to be photographed for publication (eh?). Mr Young Scot had no such qualms, “Just make sure it’s my good side.”
All in all, Telford’s Diversity Day was so interesting I stayed twice as long as I intended. With Mike’s help I even got time to sit in on a couple of workshops which gave me a glimpse of the extraordinary range of further education. Seeing a room full of young guys slumped in the first workshop I didn’t give much hope for Nil by Mouth but came out seriously impressed by the discussion on sectarianism in Scotland. Mike’s workshop on Rock against Racism was a thought provoking exploration of the grassroots rebellion against the fascism of Enoch Powell and – heaven help us – Eric Clapton who made his millions out of black music. (I did not know that Clapton still clings to his outrageous belief that Powell was a brave man speaking out against the danger of black supremacy. The one black student in the room said something like: “what planet is he on?”).
Back at my stall, I found a few people lining up to find out about the Opening Doors shadow scheme I am helping to organise with Mike (and others) to enable minorities to become more involved in politics. A group of Chinese students had already picked up a load of postcards advertising the extraordinary intercultural extravaganza Dialogues of Wind and Bamboo in the Botanics in June. So I didn’t need the plastic merchandise after all – but I wouldn’t mind getting hold of a few of those magic markers.
Thanks to Tommy for the banner!
April 25th, 2008
Well, Tommy, Nick and I didn’t get arrested but just for a few seconds I felt a flicker of what it might be like to suffer the real humiliation of Guantanamo as we were ordered to kneel in a pose of submission by a young man in combat gear: “I don’t want to see your eyes, look down, look down.” Even though I knew this was just for the sake of the cameras flashing outside the US Consulate, even though we were all wearing orange boiler suits specially provided by Amnesty for the lunch hour demo, the mere act of kneeling, head down was a humbling act. When my glasses slipped down my nose I wondered if the guard would shout at me again for looking up to stop them falling.
I couldn’t take the next, more dramatic picture outside the Edinburgh US Consulate because I was kneeling on the cobblestones with my head down. None of us were arrested but according to Aljazeera 81 protesters were arrested outside the US Supreme Court and could face up to 60 days in jail.
Role playing acts of submission and oppression can reveal disquieting truths about human beings. The Milgram experiments at Yale in the early sixties showed how much pain perfectly ordinary people are prepared to inflict if they are ordered to do it by someone in a white coat.
Guantanamo also demonstrates Stanley Milgram’s ‘perils of obedience’. It occurs to me that there are layers of meaning in the Amnesty ‘Protect the Human’ placards we were carrying: the oppressor risks losing his or her humanity at least as much as the oppressed.
If there are had been an opportunity this morning I would like to have asked the friendly young man in the combat suit if he had felt another side of himself emerging as he ordered a couple of hundred people to kneel on the ground, first on the cobbled streets in front of the US Consulate, then again on the Mound next to the Royal Scottish Academy. Nick (click here to read his account), however, had the brass neck to quote what Princess Leah said to Luke in Star Wars, “Aren’t you a little small for a storm trooper?” Our trooper just flashed a smile in reply. For us this was only make believe.
Phil, in a smart day wear, turned up in time to photograph Nick and me on the Mound.
This is the sixth anniversary of Guantanamo. Amnesty held demonstrations in Edinburgh, London and Belfast today calling for an end to torture, ill treatment and the denial of fair trial by US authorities; an end to the failure of the UK Government to oppose this terrible travesty of justice, and renewed commitment to justice and human rights for all.
As we walk away, Tommy comments that almost all demos suffer from the support they
attract (of course he doesn’t mean Nick and me). I say that might be unfair, under the orange boiler suits there were probably quite a few very ‘ordinary’ people (as ordinary as us anyway) but there is always a ‘rent a demo’ element which is why the silent and hidden majority who also oppose injustice need to become much more visible.
Unfortunately, apart from Green Robin Harper, I didn’t see any politicians there today (in orange boiler suits or otherwise) though my own parliamentary representatives Mark Lazarowicz (Westminster) and Malcolm Chishom (Scottish Parliament) have both signed the Amnesty petition calling for closure of Guantanamo.
January 11th, 2008
He’s a 40 year old policeman who is fed up having to move groups of young people away from street corners. ‘Where can we go Simon?’ they ask him.
I love it when stereotypes are torn to shreds. On Saturday I went to a community meeting which tore up all those prejudices about young people and threw them out the window (the prejudices, not the young people).
First there was Simon, the local bobby on the beat, who arrived with a child’s car seat in one hand and a Dire Straits CD in the other (well no-one’s perfect). Simon is a driving force of a plan to create a community garden on some spare ground behind a cluster of very ordinary looking flats, filled with far from ordinary people. He’s a 40 year old policeman who is fed up having to move groups of young people away from street corners. ‘Where can we go Simon?’ they ask him. He’s also fed up with the rubbish food they buy from local shops and the rubbish they throw on the ground.
Given the chance, he thinks, young people would much rather spend their time and money on something worthwhile so he has got his eye on the old railway tunnels across the river from the patch of ground that could become a community garden. His tunnel vision sees an art space where kids can make music, learn skills and hang out without disturbing the peace. He believes they will also help run the community garden.
Then there’s Davey, one of those far from ordinary folk who live in the flats. He’s chairman of the residents’ association and he knows how well kids behave when you give them the chance because that’s exactly what he does when he hands them the key to the community hut. ‘There’s the DVD player,’ he says, ‘Help yourself to tea and biscuits,’ he says. And do you know what, they not only clean up afterwards, they leave money for the tea and biscuits.
As if that wasn’t enough to crunch any remaining prejudices, along comes Linda, another local resident. She used to live on a London council estate where she created a garden on common land. To make sure the local kids didn’t trash her work she got them to help. She took them along to the nearest B&Q to choose plants and buy the stuff they needed to create a small pond. It worked. “Get them involved,” she says, “if they feel they have a share in what’s going on they might even get interested in looking after the environment.”
I must admit, I went to the meeting only because my mate Becky persuaded me to. She’s a landscape designer. Neither of us can afford to take on any more voluntary work but of course the project is so inspiring we are volunteering to help in any way we can. Now, while local residents form a steering group to start fundraising, Becky hopes to engage local school groups to help her draw up designs. And I have promised to write about the project as it begins to grow. When the time is right I shall do just that giving names and proper credit to this really amazing scheme.
November 14th, 2007
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