Building Strong Communities

Communities are fairly local phenomena in my humble opinion. We interact with and connect with and learn to care about and trust the people we come across in the areas we live, work, commute and spend leisure time. And these local areas could be better planned ...

For example, I live in Hackney in a neighbourhood of terraced victorian houses, small shops and pubs. Close by is the De Beauvour Estate, the Kingsgate Estate and others. My neighborhood is separated from the De Beauvoir Estate by a large road with a lot of traffic and the environment close to the estate lacks mature trees or well kepy public spaces. I believe these physical 'barriers' (the road) and the lack of welcoming shared space keeps these two groups of residents separate.

In my view, the re is an opportunity for plan for Greater London to put more focus on repairing these kinds of separations and inequity of quality shared spaces in all of the local areas, residential or not. The more we see one another and speak to one another, the more there exists a community.

A community feels stronger when it has more say in local development planning and licensing decisions. Instead, government has reduced local democracy each time it claims to be increasing it. Neither the GLA & London Mayor, national government nor developers should have as much power as they do in practice over 'place-making', planning and licensing decisions. And when it comes to 'place-making' (new euphemism & PR makeover for local council traffic departments), Transport for London is the worst, the least responsive to local communities needs and to the impacts the changes made by TfL has on local residents and on visitors to central London.

During the first lockdown our local street set up a whatsapp group to help coordinate support for vulnerable people and/or those isolating. It then evolved and a new group was set up for socialising among residents. It still occasionally came back to coordinating support but other things happened e.g. a very active debate around BLM when that happened and then organising social gatherings outside once that became legal. It was interesting how people got to know each other and people would put requests for things they needed or people would give things away they were done with and it built the sense of community by establishing relationships. It was a good thing.

When I look in our societies, among other important things, we speak of charity and volunteering - even in funding something as important as our schools. Yet, conflictingly, we will speak of patriotism and sacrifice associated with activating holy, foreign military interventions. Is our institutional doctrines intentionally misguiding, or overwhelming directed by greed, profit making and deliberate inequity? TED Talks speaker Emily Esfahni-Smith, speaks of developing a sense of "meaning" that give us an awareness of: belonging, purpose, transcendence above the noise, and the editable story we tell ourselves, and other, about ourselves. However, our leaders often tell us about the non-existent money tree; about the complexities of "leveling-up"; and of government debt. I believe that perhaps they don't really understand about the abstractedness of money; or they are insidiously looking to enslave the masses in a modern form of "dark-ages" feudalism. Seemingly, in our fiat system of finance, governments are the ones who create money (e.g. quantitative easing). Consequently, in the fifth largest economy - but nowhere near the fifth largest population - a society devoid of greed, envoy and social needs should be undeniable possibility. I live in hope of "the road to Damascus" enlightenment.

Well there may be so many people who have the same mind like me, but no one have ever shared there opinion with me as far as I am concern. But all I know at times you have someone who have the same mind set with you. May be someone will soo come to share his /her opinion with me we can not tell.
Thank you and God bless you.

I believe to build strong communities is to encompass the feeling of building or having a strong family! What does that feel like? what does that look like? e.g. trust, sense of responsibility, equality, secure, happy, everyone has a voice, working together, being heard, love! when we start to treasure the person in front of us and see everyone in us it starts to positively transform our environment!

The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals are a great way to measure the actions we are taking. If the actions we are taking are supporting those goals then by all means lets do it but if it negates against those goals then we should be having strong discussions about why we want to do it.

A strong community is strong when it's elected member of Parliament and Mayor's supports the people and the area that voted for them, nothing worse than having a paper politician who are busy promoting their party initives and not listening to their voters.

An example of this, Hounslow west tube station car park, this is a huge car park, it supports all local people in their commute to work and people from surrounding areas, the mayor of London and the MP for Hounslow have decided to build flats in the whole car park, in their persuit to meet quota there is no consideration for the residents and businesses of Hounslow West, the impact 4 years of construction will have on residents. Pretty much all residents are against this construction and for good reason, the area has many developments going up already and the area is already congested and is due to become even more congested, but our voted in politicians are not giving us the people a voice, oh sorry they are giving us a fake voice so that they can say as part of their box ticking exercise we asked the residents what they felt. This is what makes communities weak. A lack of leadership is what makes communities weak, just coming out during election time and asking for votes doesn't cut it, work for your voters, try listening to them and you will see a stronger commumity.

Communities are fighting an uphill battle when they elected leaders are not supporting the causes.

So what do I say, Mayor of London, MP of Hounslow ask your selves how can you help make a community stronger?

The most important thing for any community is that there is a shared *sense* of community. For this to be possible, people need to know each other and share in concerns and perspectives. There must be shared spaces where people can and are encouraged to meet, low-threshold frequent highly local community events, support and visibility for local mutual aid groups, and - most importantly - accessible and affordable housing which can only be realistically provisioned through social housing programmes and subsidised community land trusts.

The only way a community can have any cohesiveness is if its people can *afford* to actually feel part of it. They can afford to live there, and they can afford to remain there. Additionally, they need to be able to survive there; that means access to work (which requires good and well-functioning public infrastructure) and good access to the essentials, both the basics (food, housing as mentioned, basic utilities) and the modern (broadband, good waste management).

I think that the Borough I am living in has done very well in the diversity of the community and also has made it possible for people like me with a long term mental health illness, have opportunities to stop us from completely self-isolating.

The important thing is not just the people it is our parks and community activities.

London and other cities suffer from gentrification which is excluding many local communities. There isn't enough work for young people in London particularly from BME backgrounds. There needs to be investment in local transportation networks. Pavements are sometimes unsafe and uneven. There needs to be more lifts at railway stations and better signalling on the rail network. Large infrastructure projects such as the Silvertown Road Tunnel and Crossrail are irrelevant and a waste of money - and should be cancelled. The big infrastructure project that is needed a huge modernisation of the sewage system of London and other big cities. The last time this happened was during the 19th century. Cultural venues such as the ICA, BFI and National Theatre need to reopen but in a Covid-safe way. I welcome the Mayor of London's Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm. I welcome the reopening of London's libraries.

One of the things that makes communities less strong is that you can't easily move house near where you live. Prices rocket, and so it's hard to stay local. Moving a lot from one part of this huge city to another weakens the sense of community. We need to bring in laws against selling property to people/ companies not based in the UK (if you live here who cares where you come from, you're part of the community, but if you're using our city as an investment opportunity that is not welcome). And I think we need much stricter control over buy to let landlords, they make heaps of cash but often keep properties in poor condition, impacting on their tenants and whoever they share their leasehold with. Better access to housing would create more stability and communities can settle. The other things that then help are free public spaces, affordable cafes and meeting places run by locally owned businesses. Let's ditch the minimum wage Costa for a local family run business by offering better rents and charges to one off establishments. Where I live there is a good mix of overpriced coffee places for the well off people and more basic places for the rest of us and on a Sunday the high street is closed off so those cheaper cafes can put tables out. Its lovely. They should be encouraged because they charge half what the posh places sell and you see a good mix of people in them (the more expensive places just serve the middle class white residents and exclude the area's other established communities). Its good to have a real diversity of offer on the high street from the organic farmers market to the £1 veg bowls. Also post pandemic the council seems more relaxed about chairs and tables on the street. This is great. We've let the car take over our city, clogging up our streets and ruining our air quality. The nicer our local areas are, the less people will travel and the better we'll all be.

Communities grow strong when they are more settled. Years ago ( when I was younger), even in London, families would be settled in an area - they would have grown up there and had both family links, and social links through having attended local schools, youth clubs, social events etc. In turn their children attended local schools and made friends locally and when they became old enough to have families of their own council housing policies attempted to house people near their family ( if that is what they wanted). Having lived in an area over a period of time people did feel a sense of pride in, and responsibility for their area and the people in it.
Current housing does not support building communities - people invariably are rehoused miles away from their families/ friends/ schools/ social links and so communities are broken up - for some people this happens over and over again!

People need communal spaces especially libraries. Faith communities can do so much for community cohesion. Strong families are essential. People need to feel safe and empowered. Local politics is dominated by party politics - we need to get away from this and elect greens. There must be change to green jobs and equal opportunities. Our council has lost millions of pounds but nobody resigns! Where is the responsibility for their actions? And then they want to close 5 libraries!! Yes to safer streets but imposing road closures without consultation is nonsense! Result some of the streets are open again! In the long term we need to abandon our cars and go on public transport, walk or cycle. Electric scooters are banned but people ride them everywhere. 20 mph zones are ignored. Anti-social behaviour is ignored. We need more bobbies on the beat who know their communities. We need better provision for teenagers. The Mayor of London promises much but will he deliver? Will the government allow him to deliver? We need to address voter apathy. We also need to build on the good work done during lockdown by so many.

If an LA decides it wants to use a neighourhood to enhance business/commercial interests in the locality, rather than protect that neighbourhood from the degradation of 'liveability' or amenity that goes with business success, there is nothing that residents can do about it. Town planners, 'place-makers', talk about having residential properties in town centres, to make the area 'vibrant'. But they don't care about those residents. By 'vibrant' perhaps they mean genteel people sipping wine outside twee trendy eateries and bars, but in the real world it is a euphemism for all-night noise, heavy drinking, fights, people urinating in the streets and on residents' doormats, drunk people puking everywhere, and so-on. Residents in busy central areas also suffer from noise and air pollution from deliveries, waste & recycling collections, other servicing vehicles at the shops, restaurants, bars, pubs, & other venues. This can go on all through the night. Neither adults nor children can get the good quality 8 hours sleep they need for good health, nor the peace & quiet during the evenings they need to recover from work, to do homework, whatever. The bad air quality affects their health, as does the noise. The GLA wants a 24-hour city, regardless of the desperate need to bring in proper protection for residents against this. LAs are responsible for public health with regard to some local health services, but they are not accountable in any way for the damage they do to residents' health by not keeping residential & mixed areas quiet & with clean air. It is commercial/retail/hospitality success that destroys community in London. More shoppers = more deliveries, waste vehicles, 24/7 noise & pollution. Time to restore the balance between commercial & residents' interests that has been destroyed in central areas.

One serious problem for London currently is that estates and neighbourhoods are losing communal areas such as mini-gardens, gardens, play spaces, because the HA owner, or the LA, are determined to build more housing on them. Allotments can be under threat from this as well. And of course we do need housing, but the housing that gets built on these community facilities is often for wealthy people only. The government made such spaces much more vulnerable to development in a large catch-all Bill they passed a few years back. It even redefinined all sorts of community spaces as brownfield sites, making them attractive to developers. This should be stopped. If there is anything at all the GLA can do to give all such spaces much greater protection from being built on, that would at least stop the loss.

Communities in Havering are distinct and different. Those in the North of the borough rarely if ever want to co-operate with Hornchuch, Upminster, Cranham, South Hornchurh and Rainham, who have strong Resident Associations with RA councillors. As far as the Havering council are concerned, everything is Romford, where their base is. The Pandemic has shown the strength of our community with volunteers helping the NHS and local residents. The kindness shown to those who are old and in many cases disabled has been wonderful to see.
The London Local authority boundary Commission have broken up our present communities, some wards have been in existence since 1965 but all that mattered to them was figures decided by a desk jockey. my ward had 50% taken away and given to other wards and our Councillors' will be reduced to 2 in 2022. The LLGBC boast they keep communities together, well in our case our community will be dismantled. After May 2022 new communities will have to be formed.