Tag: city

Londoners’ own plan for London

By News, Resources, , , , , , , , , ,

Re-posted from Just Space website

See pp 48 – 51 for policy proposals on ‘Community Food and Food Production’ that CFGN has worked with Sustain, Women’s Environmental Network and the Federation of City Farms and Gardens on.

Just Space Network launches Community-led Plan for London and calls for Sadiq Khan to encourage fair involvement in planning.

Just Space, an informal network of voluntary and community groups, has published a draft Community-led Plan for London to establish the need for public participation and new initiatives in planning the city.

Towards July thumb

Frustrated by the few gains resulting from community participation in successive Examinations in Public (EiPs) of the London Plan, and at too late a stage in the process, Just Space decided to use its combined knowledge and evidence built up over many years and write a set of London Plan policies from a community perspective. Eighty-five different organizations have contributed to the draft, from local community campaigns to pan-London interest groups.

Just Space calls for the new Mayor to analyse the current planning model and its detrimental impact on the majority of Londoners. They say there is an urgent need to re-balance a system in which developer-led planning dominates large areas of the city, for example across the ‘Opportunity Areas’. Just Space challenged Boris Johnson’s London Plan, saying it would increase the polarisation of London’s communities, continue to encourage inequality and not solve the housing crisis. They were also critical of the narrowness of his ‘World City’ focus.

…

Read More+

Feeding Cities from within

By News, , , , ,

Re-post from Sustainable Food Trust

Urban agriculture is sprouting up all over the world. Urbanites are taking the soil into their own hands and wrestling back control of food production – from community allotments driving regeneration in Detroit and guerrilla gardeners turning flower beds into cabbage patches across cities to temporary growing plots in meanwhile spaces like the Skip Garden in London and commercial rooftop greenhouse operations like Lufa Farms in Montreal.

Urban agriculture is much more prevalent in developing nations. This often comes about through necessity, in response to economic breakdown, civil unrest or institutional decline, when incomes and food distribution systems are disrupted. Urban farming becomes a household survival strategy in these situations. In Kampala, Uganda, over 35% of the city’s population are engaged in agriculture, and this has improved the nutritional status of children there. In Yaounde, Cameroon, almost all the leafy vegetables consumed by poor urban residents are grown in the valleys surrounding the city.

…

Read More+

MIPIM in London – 21st – 23rd October – the Poverty Developers are back

By Events, , , , , , , ,

Re-posted from Radical Housing Network website

In 2014 a motley crew of private developers, speculators, councils and politicians met in London to carve -up and sell -off our city. But activists from housing campaigns, tenant organisations and trade unions were there to meet them. Our message was ‘Homes for Need not Greed!’ We made a big impact, with lots of news coverage, and we managed to close down their junket for a while. Twelve months later, the housing crisis has got worse and they’re coming back. We need to be there too!

What is MIPIM?
MIPIM (Le marché international des professionnels de l’immobilier) proudly describes itself as a gathering of ‘the most influential international property players, looking to close deals in the UK property market’.

Why Join the Protest?
We’re facing a major housing crisis. Rents and mortgages are out of control and there are five million people on council waiting lists. Public land that should be used to build the homes we need is being sold off or given to speculators at rock-bottom prices (public land worth £45million was given to Barratts for £5 by Barnet council without the knowledge of the council tenants living on it). Our neighbourhoods are under threat from estate demolitions and displacement. Entire communities are facing eviction. The wealthiest 1% – whose interests are represented at MIPIM – are profiting from the struggle of ordinary people to afford their basic housing needs, many of whom are now being made homeless as a direct result of the regeneration projects.

…

Read More+