Imagine a world where the new Sainsbury’s in Weymouth closed down for lack of custom, closely followed by the Morrisons next door and the Asda on Boot Hill roundabout. Where Weymouth had tight competition among butchers (where none exist at present) and people bought local Craig’s Farm ice cream made in Osmington out of preference to Co Op ice cream imported from Poole.
Imagine a world where shop rents in Weymouth went up not out of avarice on the part of landlords (which is partly why so many remain empty currently) but because of competition by local businesses for space on St Mary Street. Even more bonkers, a world where local services were not managed by a small group of beach trader councillors but by ordinary people on local estates who knew what they wanted and needed?
This seems a rather silly, utopian vision for a town that is dying on its arse due to ‘globalisation’, ‘political apathy’ (the chief reason the beach traders run the joint and a Tory MP isn’t laughed out of the polling booths), and a general state of malaise.
I spent three years in Weymouth and became close to a number of crazy left wingers who thought that change is possible. The Firebox was born and a genuine attempt has been made, in conjunction with Transition Towns and a number of other bodies to alter the situation – not for personal gain, but the welfare of the residents of one of the poorest towns in the UK. I left, and The Firebox carries on…
Negative campaigning can suck the life out of you. Imagine how we will all feel on the morning of the 6th May 2015 and Richard Drax is still MP, and part of a Tory government that got in on a landslide? People fighting against this horrifying possibility in various parties and the Dorset People’s Assembly just won’t want to get out of bed. Some will consider emigration, others will just fight on, remembering that Ed Miliband is far to the right of them anyhow and all they’d get is a red Tory party…
In getting my group of friends together in Weymouth I was seeking solutions to the problem of the retreating state. In looking for solutions rather than seeking the downfall of one party or another, one is nourishing oneself as opposed to purely fighting negatively. If you are busily thrashing the system at its own game then you’re winning merely by going to work every morning.
On arriving in Luton and decompressing I started networking and seeking to recreate the beautiful vision of The Firebox. One of my Dorset network sent me something about a course taking place in Marsh Farm, a sink estate where 12 teenage kids got shot last year in gang warfare. There were riots a few years before as people grew sick of being fed what idiotic bureaucrats and politicians thought was good for them.
I ended up on a five day Bottom Up Development course which is about community empowerment. In the face of the retreat of the state, people are starving. In economically poor areas, they are unable to fight for themselves. This isn’t unlike parts of Weymouth and Portland, where Jobcentre weenies sanction people for not getting work, despite work being nonexistent.
The BUD course is designed to enlighten people about what opportunities there are in their backyard if they just take a long term view and start working towards that view, with the intent of getting off the dole and earning from their work in the community.
Let’s look at Marsh Farm’s economy: Between just over 3000 households there is a GDP of around £50 million annually. Public services add another £20 million, fed top down. Around half of the money spent by residents goes out of the estate. Groceries get bought in an out of town supermarket. There are no MOT testing stations in the area. £1.9 million is spent on fast food annually – there is only one fast food joint in Marsh Farm. There is one leisure facility which is aimed at mums and young kids – nothing really for older kids and young adults. There are a number of underemployed childminders on the estate but a great demand and all they need is to be known, and people wouldn’t have their kids cared for away from the estate!
The question presented to the group was, how could we prevent some of the £30 million leaving the estate? Could £15 million get rid of unemployment in the estate? What, you kidding me?! Of course it could! Social problems. What if profits were reinvested to give teenage boys something more fun to do than shoot each other?
OK, so we’re in the utopian vision again. This is where theory and practice come to the table. Marsh Farm Outreach is a group of highly motivated, knowledgeable individuals who really want their home to be a great place to live. They knew the original farmhouse of Marsh Farm was derelict so approached the council with a bulletproof business plan to rebuild it in return for materials (total, £12 k) and a long lease. They got it and put £105,000 of work in by local people to turn it into a small community resource. The plan is now to build a block of one bedroom council flats for Bedroom Tax victims to finance their next ventures. These are pragmatic realists not dreamers.
The theoretical basis is Organisation Workshop (OW). Clodomir de Santos discovered the concept while being involved in the Nordeste Peasant League in Brazil in the 1960’s. Essentially he had to get 40 peasants together in a house to discuss the strategy for overthrowing the Brazilian junta. This took some time as discovery of the meeting could result in summary execution and people could not just turn up in groups to the meeting. Over three weeks there was no organisation at all in the building but things seemed to sort themselves out. Why? People organised cooking, cleaning and washing routines of their own accord. No such rotas or systems were planned – the organisers were solely interested in overthrowing the government so hadn’t thought as far as domestic routines.
In successive meetings this happened. Flat management structures emerged, and participants took this unplanned concept home. Most of them forgot the strategy being fed them by the Peasant League leadership but they improved their businesses at home through the cooperative systems they had to learn to prevent chaos in the building.
After the junta was overthrown de Morais developed the concept of Organisation Workshop in more positive environments. Why not get landless peasants together to form their own businesses? Mentor them in the skills they need, but allow it to be self organised. A large number of successful peasants’ cooperatives have sprung up around the world. In the UK, which is considered a tax haven run by despots by some, Luton is developing the first OW in Marsh Farm.
The BUD course was for people generally on the dole, to see a way out of their situations by self organising. How the Localism Act can enable people to bring local services under the control of the estate. How to run social and economic analyses to see the basis by which a business that could claw some of the outside spend back in. How to seek and find human and physical community resources. How to use pragmatism to deal with social problems.
But most of all, it told us all that we can change the situation because the infrastructure is in place already! 15 acres of arable land, a few acres of forest. Derelict garages and other buildings that can be turned into community facilities.
In the coming weeks there will be two more BUD courses and then the real work begins. A 100 strong Organisation Workshop will be done over 8 weeks, taking the actors off the dole and starting them earning.
What will come of it? Feeling the buzz in the class in the last week as people realised just what human resources there were in the class (never mind the rest of the community) was something to behold. One guy can walk up a garden path and identify 10 edible ‘weeds’. An 18 year old girl who is so switched on she could do an undergraduate degree in her sleep – despite having no GCSE’s due to her personal circumstances. There was so much to be found under the skin of the participants of the course I am under no illusion that change is possible. Yet most are on the dole and subject to abuse from politicians of all colours as scroungers.
The road for such projects is never smooth and straight – it will be tough as hell at times for everyone. Given the motivation, skills and abilities of those in the first BUD course? I feel sorry for the existing power structures as they will weaken and hopefully fall. Will the local money vacuum supermarket close and local shelf stackers on Minimum Wage become local artisans on a Living Wage? It is a realistic possibility. Will those in Luton Town Hall continue to run all services in Marsh Farm? I doubt it. Will there be a significant change to the local economy?
Will the good guys of the community make a real difference to community spirit by working together for the benefit of all? Without a bloody doubt!
Richard Shrubb
