Including Women Event and Neighbourhood Planning

Last week, I was invited along to an event organised by Including Women in Balsall Heath. Strangely, there were two men there, both called Joe and both with an interest in planning - what does that tell you? Anyway, I was asked to speak about our campaigns from global to local level.
I chose food, because we ran a campaign called Fix The Food Chain last year, which raised awareness of the links between what we eat, deforestation happening in South America, Global injustice and Climate Change. On the local level we have been supportive of grow-sites being developed on small pieces of derelict land in Birmingham, so that people can grow their own food, as well as attempting to protect small independent shops from supermarkets taking over the city.
Also speaking were Val from the History Society who spoke about how the neighbourhood has changed over the years and showing some really interesting pictures to illustrate it and Joe Holyoak who ran a session getting people to think about what they want to go into the neighbourhood plan.

It was great to hear people's views on what they would like to be done differently (even if not everything could be changed by the planning process) and, once again, it showed that the kinds of things we ask for in terms of safer streets for pedestrians and cyclists are actually what people with no environmental agenda also ask for.

I'll be really interested to see what comes out of the Balsall Heath neighbourhood plan. From what was said in this meeting, it's hard to imagine that it'll be as focused as the government wants on encouraging more development and more economic activity, but will be about stopping certain types of development, such as more big "shed" retail developments on the old Joseph Chamberlain site, which is positive as far as we're concerned.
I hope that mixed use and employment land is created within the plan for walkable spaces to provide something for an area with high density housing and high unemployment. I also hope that people learn about the good stuff that already exists within Balsall Heath that needs to be supported while they're having these conversations.

Joe Peacock

Power To The People? Unlikely.

On Monday 3^rd October, Birmingham City Council/Birmingham Environmental Partnership held a Sustainability Forum at the Council House from 6pm to 8.45pm. The theme of the evening was: “The Future of Our Streets?”. Rather than finding answers or solutions however, we were left asking a number of questions.

Background:

A number of groups turned up by 5.30pm, some of which set up stalls (among those present were Grease Lightening/CSV environment, Localise West Midlands, local allotment plotholders, West Midlands police, the Co-operative Society, Smurfitt Kappa, councillors, Sustainable Moseley); people mingled over soup until around 6.30pm (very nice, thank you BCC); and then we all withdrew to the other side of the room for presentations on waste, renewables, food security and transport.

David Bull from BCC took on transport, Kevin Mitchell talked about the forthcoming Municipal Waste Review and related issues, John Boyle from the WM Co-op covered food security, and Phil Beardmore from Localise WM gave an in-depth presentation on anaerobic digesters.

We then got to discuss these issues and made posters expressing our views and ideas on how to make Birmingham more sustainable. The forum itself was billed as an opportunity to “make a real difference by voicing your views” and this is where I am somewhat unconvinced, despite the many positive things to come out of it.

On the plus side:

+ It certainly was a good opportunity to network. The Council clearly caters for that very well.

+ The speakers themselves were for the most part clear, articulate and informative during their presentations, and certainly provided us with some good anecdotes.

+ Importantly, it was a demonstration of the Council's willingness to engage with, and listen to the ideas of, different groups in society.

On the negative side;

- It would have been nice, however, to have a more diverse, representative picture/take on the current situation and best-fit practices in the presentations. The speakers were either speaking for their department of the council or for other organisations, so it seemed we were talked at, rather than engaged with. Also, they didn't really seem to stick to the topic if there was one (the cooperative may be a good organisation, but we heard very little about food security).

- There wasn't nearly as much time as we would have liked to discuss the issues and even get further information. “Q&;A” with the panel consisted of a couple of minutes of answering 2 questions, most of which were only superficially covered or dodged completely. It was like watching David Beckham in that press conference after the allegations about Rebecca Loos. Except that this perhaps was slightly less glamorous.

- The feedback time (moment to 'make a difference') was less than an hour, regrettably, meaning people didn't have a chance to go into much detail, have a truly meaningful debate, and give considered, innovative, original responses. The responses that were given, were recorded, but we are not sure what will be done with it. I contacted the forum's organiser, Lorraine Cookson, for information about how our input would be used, whether we would get any feedback from the Council and where I could get access to copies of the four presentations given. I have yet to receive a reply, but local organisations such as ours and the others represented last week have a unique perspective on how things are on the ground, what work needs to be done to change people's behaviour and how best to go about doing it. They can give vital insight into how to make Birmingham more sustainable in a real, practical sense; some council decisions and plans, whilst good on paper, might be ineffective, inappropriate or impracticable in reality. Listening to the experiences and suggestions of grassroots organisations brings the Council closer to the real world, so we hope there will be reporting on what they do with the feedback from the forum, or they will struggle to attract people to come along in future.

To sum up then, my suggestions are that there should be some kind of formal record of our input, which is distributed among participants; information should be given to us on specific upcoming projects (and who is involved in them), planning- and decision-making dates and outcomes, and contact details for the main policy-making groups or individuals. That way we can assess the democratic process and monitor progress.

In order for these events not just to be considered talking shops that give the impression that the council is listening to our opinions, they should be more focussed and the aims and methods of achieving these aims be made clearer. Then it would be a really worthwhile exercise, which would hopefully result in a larger audience, too.

>>>>>>>>>>>  THIS IS AN EDITED VERSION OF THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE I WROTE.  The original was edited by Joe Peacock and included comments on Andrew Mitchell.  I cannot say for sure which bits I wrote and what has been changed, but would like the record to show and for people to know that this is not entirely my work and not the original work.
Gergana (4th October 2012)

Digbeth Residents Association 07.02.11

Last night I went to my first Digbeth Residents Association (DRA) meeting. I started at Birmingham FoE as Outreach Officer last month and am working on creating links with residents groups, as well as organising events (such as our HS2 debate) and finding opportunities for us to go out and talk to people.

I was asked if I would like to attend after sending a few e-mails to Val and Pam about the possibility of establishing a grow site in Digbeth. We have been involved in others, so it would be good to do one here where we're based.

Upon arriving at the Alcester suite of the Paragon hotel I was welcomed in by friendly faces. These included residents of Digbeth, a police officer from the area and people interested in the Digbeth area.

After all the introductions were out the way the DRA spoke passionately about Digbeth's future. They feel strongly that the Digbeth area needs more greenery. They have been given 20 Birch trees by the Eastside Projects, with the idea that they will be planted in Highgate park, although the DRA are hoping to set a few a side to be distributed around the area. Another idea was to use the abandoned Victorian rail viaduct as allotment space. We also touched on the subject of grow-sites in Digbeth; which is something I've been looking into myself. Everyone there seemed enthusiastic about the idea and I think it will be a great success... that is when the pain-stakingly long process of finding land we can use is done!

Other issues raised concern the section 106 improvements to Bradford Street, St Patrick's day parade, film nights in the spotted dog, police presence at the meetings and the Digbeth summit.

Overall it was a great insight into all the planning and hard work that goes into making Digbeth the exciting and creative place that it is today!

Rosie Cervelli

Edible Erdington Potato Day

I've just received this press release about a great sounding event coming up, so thought I'd share it with you. Eleanor Hoad, the organiser, was also involved in our Edible Birmingham event last year when she brought along her apple press from which I enjoyed some delicious fresh juice!

PRESS RELEASE

16th February 2011 for immediate release

Edible Erdington Potato Day

On Saturday 26th February between 11am-3pm visitors to Erdington High Street will be able to join in the ‘Edible Erdington’ Potato Day celebrations. Edible Erdington is a project that has successfully transformed 3 large brick planters on Erdington High Street into vegetable plots. Dreamed up by Erdington Artist in Residence Eleanor Hoad ‘Edible Erdington’ has grown over 60 different varieties of vegetables in the last year with a group of volunteers, right in the high street and local people have welcomed the unusual edible change from flowers to vegetables.

Celebrating the humble potato, Potato Day will have activities for everyone including; a display of some of the 150 different varieties of potato available in the UK, free potato themed food, the chance to taste some of the high street harvest, free seed potato giveaways, Morris Dancing, a hands on session planting potatoes and vegetable growing advice. A ‘Seed Swap’ will take place on the day, bring along your spare seeds to swap.

Visitors will also be able to enter “The Great Erdington Potato Self Portrait Competition”. Everyone will have the chance to create a self-portrait using just a potato and a variety of craft materials! Prizes are available for the best entries and a display of all the entries will be created through the day. There will also be the chance to make a seed bomb to take away. Seed bombs are used by guerrilla gardeners and are a handy portable mix of seeds, compost and clay for planting in unusual locations.

Eleanor Hoad said “ We often overlook the humble potato but they are a great source of vitamin C and fibre and there are so many unusual varieties available that we hardly ever see in the shops. Potatoes are easy to grow at home in the ground or in containers, its amazing how many you can grow even in a small space.”

For more press information, pictures or interviews please contact Eleanor Hoad on 07974 934 917, eleanorhoad@hotmail.com

The Tenby Cottages Community Garden Group

Monday night (October 18^th) saw the first meeting of the Tenby Cottages Community Garden Group, a community group based in Lozells who are planning on turning waste ground into a community growing space. The project was proposed by Friends of the Earth’s Tom Pointon, and has now been taken on by Sarah Royal of CSV Environment, and I was lucky enough to be in attendance for this first meeting.

The idea of the project is to convert an area of waste ground into a community grow site, where local residents can grow their own fruit and vegetables. The area chosen was once home to a set of cottages (the Tenby Cottages, of course), which were knocked down some years ago as part of a redevelopment scheme by the local council. As yet, however, nothing has been proposed for the site by the council, and thus Tom saw the opportunity to create something positive. Up until recently, the site, located just off Poplar Avenue in Lozells, has been the victim of fly tipping. However, work has been conducted in the past few months by CSV Environment, and the site has been flattened and covered in bark chippings ready to be transformed.

A grow site is an area of disused land (often in an area that attracts anti-social behaviour), which has been transformed to become a place where local residents are allocated a grow bed in which to grow their own food. It is different from an allotment because residents do not pay rent on the site, and everything grown must be for personal consumption. Each resident who holds a grow bed there is given a key to the site, so it is secure at all times. Projects such as this already exist across Birmingham, namely the GEML Project (Grow It, Eat It, Move It, Live It) which has had great success in Ladywood, and the Concrete to Coriander Project.

The meeting was largely an introductory session, allowing local residents to come and voice their opinions on the running of the site to Sarah Royal and Cynthia Cupido, who works for Birmingham City Council Housing. The originally proposed plans had 30 grow beds, measuring 1 metre by 2 metres, laid out in a fairly uniform pattern. However, residents seemed to prefer the idea of less beds and more space for benches to make the site more sociable. There was even talk of a barbeque area being built so residents would be able to eat their produce on site! Also on the site there will be composting bins, where locals will be able to bring their organic waste, as well as a shed in which to keep communal tools.

So what’s next? Once the residents have decided on the layout of the site, CSV Environment will get to work on making the raised grow beds for the site. The council will be investigating whether or not they are able to get a water supply to the site, to prevent any inevitable injuries caused by lugging huge tanks of water back and forth from home! It is then up to the residents to organise themselves into a constitution community group. This will give them access to funding which otherwise would not be available, particularly from “Awards for All”. Despite there not being a huge turnout for the first meeting, the residents who did attend were all enthusiastic about the project, and were keen to get more people involved. There was also talk of trying to get the local schools involved. If a local school was allocated one or two beds, the children there would be able to learn how to grow their own food, and the importance of doing so. It would also be beneficial to get local shopkeepers and businesses on board, as well as local councillors, to support the project.

I was very impressed with the enthusiasm of everyone involved at the meeting. Sarah in particular was very passionate about getting the site up and running. I think grow sites are a great way of transforming a local eyesore into something which the community can be proud of and ultimately benefit from. Hopefully everything at the Tenby Cottages site will be ready by March next year, just in time for the new growing season! Keep your eyes peeled for pictures in the coming months as the site starts to take shape.

Outreach news

This last week I've been busy putting together a funding proposal to transform a piece of unused, contaminated land in the heart of Lozells into a grow site for local residents to produce their own food.
The Heart of Birmingham Primary Care Trust has pioneered GEML, which stands for Grow It, Eat It, Move It, Live It. This is a cross sector partnership operating in Ladywood, Soho, Aston and Nechells with four aspects: growing food, encouraging interest in cooking and healthy eating, active living and reclaiming open spaces. The site in Lozells is now developing this in other parts of the city.
It's remarkable what happens when you get agencies, third sector organisations and individuals working together. I was recently at an environmental forum meeting at which, in the space of fifteen minutes, a decision was taken to transform a piece of land into a grow site. Birmingham Council now has a worker on board who is able to cut through the jungle of red tape and make things happen.
I'm unsure what the exact difference is between a grow site and allotments, I think the essential one being allotments have a permanent status, whereas a grow site implies something more temporary.
I'm finding the research interesting. The site in Lozells is going to use raised containers and I've decided the quickest, easiest and most cost effective to be the builders bags which deliver aggregates. These are cheap, they are a good size for growing a few things, if someone wants to grow more they can have several bags. I'm successfully growing lettuces in one in my garden as an experiment.
I filled one a third full with polystyrene granules to bulk it out and provide drainage, then topped this with a layer of compost. I've found firms on the internet specialising in recycling plastics, and we'll use chips made from post consumer waste for this project.
These are exciting times. There's growing realisation the UK faces food shortages when oil runs out, because we have become so dependent on importing and transporting food. More and more projects are springing up in urban areas. Hackney, in London for example, has Growing Communities, which produces food in the middle of one of Europe's most densely populated cities.
I look around Birmingham and see huge potential. There's land all over the place. Last week I was in Marseille in the South of France. Couchsurfing in an apartment on a suburban housing estate on the city's south side, the grounds of which planted out with all sorts of trees such as fig, plum and olive.
We could do the same here, have a proper garden city, with apples, plums, pears...

Lozells Get Involved Day, Saturday 12 June 2010

Last Saturday 12 June, I missed the Climate Change Festival in order to run a stall at The Get Involved Day in St Georges Park, Willis Street, Lozells. This is a sizeable open space in the heart of Lozells. Having had a history of misuse, the purpose of the day was to enable local residents to take ownership of this space and judging by the crowds who turned up, it was a great success.
I was housed with other voluntary and statutory organisations in a long marquee. There were representatives from the NHS, housing associations, the police, fire service and others, including some local businesses. Some fun things, a bouncy castle, face painting as well as a football competition. I was delighted when us stallholders were given food vouchers, that was me sorted with some delicious rice, samosas and other lovely specialities.
I gave away about thirty newsletters and a sizeable number of leaflets. These seemed to be most popular with children, who are a good way of getting an environmental message across, the colourful fold out leaflets we have on subjects such as Climate Change, Farming, Transport, appeal and they can be used to decorate their bedroom walls.
I got into conversation with a few people, always friendly, occasionally enjoyably challenging. Often people just enjoy a good argument and it isn't that they disagree with you so much as they want to be convinced themselves that your arguments stand up.

I'm making good contacts with people in Lozells which is what outreach work should be all about! For example, I'll be helping and encouraging a team of street champions which is a great chance to introduce Friends of the Earth, let people know about our work and campaigns. Its also about building on the succeses of Lozells, for example a small parcel of land called Carpenters Corner off Lozells Road has been transformed into a little green space which can be used by anyone (left). Recently its been the site of an arts installation. I'm working with Gillian Lloyd, neighborhood Manager, to start a grow site on land identified as ideal for this purpose. This will be used as a pilot project to learn from before two more, much larger sites, are created.
Theres a real buzz about Lozells at the moment, local people meeting challenges in an area which a few years ago had a very poor reputation. Theres an exciting media project run by a local school with an eco slant, check them out here, they have a jolly impressive website and make youtube videos of things happening in the local area such as a community garden planted at Anglesey Road school.
So theres loads of really inspiring and encouraging things happening.
Lozells Road has a great variety of independent stores including a proper old fashioned hardware store, a Lebanese patisserie where, for a moment, I thought I'd been transported to Lyon, never mind Lozells. Theres a tailor, clothes shops, hairdressers, several pharmacies and stores serving diasporic communities. You'll find the African grocers proudly flying Ghana's flag, a couple of Bangladeshi supermarkets with a fantastic array of fresh fruit and veg. Turn a corner and out pops a little park with a childrens play area, regularly enjoyed, well cared for and owned by the local community.
If you've been scared away from Lozells by lurid tales of gangs, guns and ganja, go and take a second look. Have a wander around what I think is an area with real character and potential.

Elms Farm Excursion, Bank Holiday Monday 31 May

On Bank Holiday Monday 31 May a group of us from Birmingham went to Elms Farm, a biodynamic farm near Pershore, Worcestershire, as part of FOE's Fix the Food Chain campaign which forges links with local farmers.
Demeter is an organic standard dating back to the 1920s closely based upon the philosophies of Rudolf Steiner. Demeter follows a lunar calendar for planting, cultivating and harvesting with the aim of building a diverse ecosystem and becoming completely self reliant.
Elms Farm has been run since 2003 by Charbel Akiki who lives there with his wife Sussana and their four daughters. Charbel also shoulders a considerable amount of childcare while Sussana is at work in Birmingham.
I realised straight away I've met Charbel several times on his stall at Farmers Markets in Birmingham, so it was great to see from where his delicious salad leaves originate.
We began by attending Pershore's 'asparagus festival' which was a bit of a let down, I think we were too late for the asparagus, although there was some still on sale. We saw the parade through the town centre with lots of colourful floats, but I think most of us were more interested in the Farmers' Market. Like most of them in the UK, however, takeaway food and jars of preserves predominated.
Having scored our asparagus and, in Nigel's case, some serious quantities of seriously chocolaty cheesecake, we headed in the direction of the delightfully named North Piddle and Elms Farm. Many thanks to Nigel Baker, as I greatly enjoyed being chauffeured in his Toyota Prius, never having ridden in one before.
Sussana and Charbel welcomed us with a big pot of tea and we met a group from Worcester FOE who'd also come to see the farm. We soon got to know one another, chatting away and learning all about the intricacies of running a farm to Demeter standard, which is one of the most rigorous. Charbel and Sussana gave us some background on the farm, before we went on a tour.
First stop was the orchard, planted with the help of an agricultural college with some 600 fruit trees of some sixteen varieties of apples, pears, plums and cherries. Hens and Chickens were wandering around and live in a coops up in the orchard. Foxes are a serious problem, last year the farm lost around fifty birds. Cute and cuddly or a financial liability?
We then went on to look at the plantings of strawberries, three varieties; early, mid and late, the greenhouse with tomatoes, courgettes and those wonderful salad varieties planted out.
What struck me most seeing the farm is the way the crops co exist with the weeds, which grow all over the place and the sheer effort of maintaining the farm by hand. There's no tractor. It's easy to see how the price of Charbel's produce reflects the work which goes into it.
There's a beautiful meadow alongside full of tall grass and wild flowers, and Charbel described how nice it is for his children to enjoy. That's a good highpoint on which to conclude this report of our visit, and you can see some highlights on the video I made here.