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I'm standing on top of a hill, gazing down on St. Werburghs, an idyllic little 'village' tucked away in the fold between Bristols allotments and its 'inner city ghetto' St.Pauls. From where I'm standing it looks very pretty, it's a Sunday, and the valley is filled with the faint murmur of bank holiday weekend reverie coming from the village pub below. I wander down through the allotments, past the city farm, past the vegetarian cafe, past the organic food shop, and arrive at a disused scaffolding yard. It stands out like a 'de-centred shakra' in this implausibly idyllic urban sanctuary. In bold red lettering above the entrance there is a sign with the words, "Sold to the local community!" emblazoned across it (punctuation added for effect). I make my way to the local pub to recover from this malicious verbal assault on everything I've ever been taught about property ownership.
Half a pint later, I've stopped mumbling like a madman and plucked up the courage to chat to the locals about the project. "Yeah, bunch of rich hippies bought it didn't they," my new friend informs me through a haze of joint smoke, "It's alright for some innit!" I agree with him, and head off to meet Felicity Mellor, a university lecturer who has taken on the role of director for the Ashley Vale Action Group (the chosen name for this bunch of 'rich hippies').
The group came together in response to the scaffolding companies' plans for their former premises, and used new laws (Local Agenda 21) to legally intervene, improve and eventually take over the project in the interests of the local community (hence the sign!). And their 'whose who' includes a number of self-employed builders, plumbers and electricians, a furniture designer and maker and a civil engineer. 250 local people answered a questionnaire designed by the group, the results of which showed that 92% of respondents wanted mixed workspace/housing on the site. Concerns were also raised about the provision of social housing, parking spaces and traffic down the main road. The respondents also wanted to see imaginative and environmentally sensitive housing on the site of the former scaffolding yard. The application is for 20 self-build plots and six housing association bungalows for the elderly and it retains the current office block - the rent from which will partly finance the project. The resulting application went to the Planning Committee of Bristol City Council on the 14th of March, and was duly accepted.
"It would be nice to think that we were paving the way in getting communities to do this sort of thing, but we have been very lucky. We've got a builder, a woodworker, an engineer, a housing manager, I mean we couldn't have had a better mix really."
Felicity Mellor is as sceptical of her groups achievements as any university lecturer would be expected to be...
"A few of them work for the council, and that was quite useful, you know, knowing the right people. We did the designs ourselves, and paid one of the housing workers a small fee for putting in the application, we did the surveys ourselves, we had access to the kit etc. so yeah, we were quite lucky."
Sustainable energy solutions are difficult to come up with yourself. Have you borrowed details of your plans from other groups in the country?
"There is a rural self-build in Hocketon who thought through their energy setup loads. They don't have any heating at all, their houses all use passive solar gain to heat up, they're half underground - Earth Beamed I think it's called. We haven't been able to impose particular energy solutions, we promoted it as an 'individual self expression' project, so we couldn't really."
Is that a problem, in terms of having concrete aims, but having to have 'liquid' solutions?
"There is a tension in the group in terms of wanting to be sustainable, and work together, and also wanting to have some individual freedom... I don't think it'll be a problem. We got through most of that in the planning stage. While we started as a protest group, right from the start we realised that we could be quite positive about our protest. That's why we came up with a solution, and worked towards it."
Walking down here, I couldn't help noticing that you're quite secluded here, both geographically, ethnically and class wise, how has that affected your project?
"On this side of the tunnel, most people live here because it is nice and quiet, and can tend to be disconnected from what's going on, they'll see anything going on here as being a threat, and tend to go into 'protest mode,' rather than wanting to do anything creative. Being so -geographically- cut off, there is a sense that St. Werburghs can be seen as a little 'middle class enclave.' There is also a sense that being professional, and speaking the 'right language' in terms of technical knowledge was useful, but most of us wouldn't see ourselves as middle class - certainly not in terms of family background anyway. I suppose the money aspect is important though, you do need the capital to put down - regardless of skills etc."
Could this kind of project have happened in St. Pauls?
"I guess concerns about environment etc. are a luxury that only we can afford, and in terms of Local Agenda 21 it does seem to make comfortable lives better, rather than allowing other -less fortunate- people to get involved. It's hard to see how that could be changed, but this scheme has shown me that all you need is a positive attitude. While this particular solution may not be possible in places like St. Pauls, there may be other socially inclusive projects that are. Local Agenda 21 is also quite separate from normal BCC operations, they usually tend to just use the same old rule book, so you need a certain number of parking spaces per house etc."
Were those kind of legal restrictions a problem?
"The legal thing is another barrier, you need to pay a lawyer to go through it all, these things do need to be made less opaque. And the planners asked us for 'planning gain,' which is where a company building something has to promise they'll invest some of their profits in the local community, it seemed like a piss take, they're so inflexible, they can't see that a local group like ours is different to these commercial developers."
Many people would say you're 'out for yourselves,' and there is no difference between your utopian ideals and those of people who organise free parties every other weekend...
"This isn't just about changing things or doing things for ourselves, it's all about taking control, we're not insular or hedonistic, we're creating something for others just as much as ourselves. Some of us call ourselves anarchists, but it's not all about individual gain, there is a lot of 'vision' here."
I believed her for the next 15 minutes, until I got to Tasties bar/restaurant in St. Pauls (the unofficial Jamaican embassy of Bristol!) I mentioned the project to one of the 'community elders' that's always in there. He pointed down the road at the new social housing development being built by 4/5 large housing associations/ multinational building companies, "So you're telling me that if a bunch of unemployed builders had tried to build their own houses there it would have come off?" I scratch my head in shame at my naivety, "That kind of thing (Local Agenda 21) is designed for rich whites only, you know that as well as I do. I mean there aren't even any black guys working on that building site, let alone buying the thing!" I leave feeling very silly.