Building Strong Communities

In the Jewish community we have hubs we call them synagogues - the word in Hebrew for a synagogue is a Beit Knesset - a place of meeting, a place of gathering. Whilst a synagogue can also be known as a place of learning (Beit Midrash), a place of prayer (Beit Tfillah), a place of healing the name chosen is for meeting and gathering. Religious groups have a lot to offer to the thinking of this mission. How do we welcome each other, look out for each other, support each other?

I am a member of a Church of England hub which I think is a community hub. It is a beautiful building and the church community are very welcoming. We have been developing mental health champions with Merton Citizens so that people have an opportunity to talk to someone about their mental health worries. We are discussing extending it across 12 London Boroughs in South London as part of a project with the mental health NHS Trusts (South London Listens). I feel that it is important that people feel that they are part of a community that cares and that people look after each other.

The local community Hub we have near us in Tottenham is Living Under One Sun, Cafe, centre for gardening and other community activities. However, there is never enough money. They do not own the building and have to lease from council who have often dragged their feet as they do not want them to get in the way of massive gentrification happening in our area and are short of resources

We need to fund community hubs. Not just re-purpose libraries although that is good. They need to based on a democratic basis, owned by the community, with clear mission and purposes, have people who engage with them on a voluntary basis but also paid staff to keep things developing, changing and available despite austerity, COVID19 or other issues like crime. They could become centres for alternative development and local planning with support from units funded by GLC so they can take on planning issues locally.

They need to have council support and also to have multi-year funding with ownership vested in the community like community pubs otherwise they will just be closed when a new council wants the building, land or money for other purposes. This is what has happened with much voluntary advice and support provision.

Finally, they need also to be supported by independent funds ( managed by a trust at GLC level with income from CIL or fundraising and be able to mobilise people against plans that run counter to their community aspirations and needs to be a thorn in the side of those who are working against the common good.

In order to optimise crimes reductions challenges in London; we need to firstly accept that Parliament and Governments - central and local - continue to be intellectually bankrupt about evolving credible solutions strategies, policies, and practices.
Parliament must support my continuing input - for over 12 years now - about legislating for all landlords to install ANPR CCTV on all their external walls so that we can track and trace where the miscreants have escaped to ith where they had come from.

Community Hubs are similar to the community centres that they used to have back when I was a child, the government closed them down, hence children are now on the streets with nothing to keep them proactive.

I think it is important to have community hubs for all ages to come together to feel less isolated and becoming more involved in learning and all sorts of activities it helps them feel alive and have purpose.

Community Hubs as envisaged here are basically for gentrified communities and how to make life even better for them and their families. They don't have anything to say about unemployment, knife crime, addiction, money laundering or scamming. All of these phenomena destroy a real sense of community in London and other big cities. Living near parks makes pollution bearable for the well-to-do but not for the majority. Even this is temporary.

Community Hubs need to be things that make use of and develop exisiting buildings, organisations, facilities and connections. I'd see any new Community Hub as something that first helped to connect the already great work going on, helped people to share best practice and map exisiting provision. Secondly, they should establish the gaps and work to fill them.

For example. We could use Schools in the evening to host community events (for free). We could connecting different groups trying to deliver similar services together to share best practice (i.e. funding for youth group leaders to meet up or for greenspace organistations to discuss ways to work effectively etc.).

It would be great to see some sort of regular event where local community groups could come together and demonstrate what they're doing and encourage others to get involved.

The difficulty is always how to include those who are excluded and most in need. Maybe have a community hub role which local people are trained to undertake, these people could be from local organisations. Also encourage people to connect with their neighbours (our street set up a Whats App group early in the pandemic). I think locally have a Virtual Hub with real spokes which are in existing venues e.g. libraries, cafes, worship spaces, voluntary and community groups - don't set up new venues. Examine your models first - and have a look at what already exists in neighbourhoods - often there's quite a lot - some may just need a little bit of extra funding. And good luck!

Community Hubs is an one of the following London Festival of Ideas, may be assistance on our requested all city & county can getting to gathering all ethnic minority to nations of the rights shall be share our views on the Architecture in the Village. Real London is back to reduced Homeless risk only. Yes to the International Laws for Dutch Capital ordinal.

It is a place of information to promote your town. It will share what is happening in the town and all the community groups, promote businesses, help to set up community events. Identify projects to improve the town. Just a place that shows it genuinely cares for your town.

It will encourage and promote community from different people and groups rather than actually controlling all this activity.

The phrase ‘community hub’ has been hijacked by Councillors, politicians and consultants and bastardised to mean shoe-horning cut services inc austerity ravaged libraries together under one roof often resulting in poorer services and less staff. It’s a way of masking & hiding cuts.
We need investment in civic spaces/services already valued by communities like public libraries run by paid/trained staff not volunteers, community centres, children’s centres, parks etc.
Our public spaces are also being privatised and this needs to stop, something also has to be done about gentrification as many parts of London are being taken over by £6 a pint pubs and expensive sourdough & avocado eateries which exclude those on lower incomes or no income at all.

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Please stop wasting our time and money.

There are very few in London with tons of cash to spare, so why are you forcing us to pay our money for your self aggrandisment project?

Stop wasting money on this crazy project and let us keep the cash in our own pockets.

Instead, work towards cutting our tax burden by reducing Council Tax as well as Business rates, (which we all pay when we visit shops).

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