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Category Archives: Self-renovating neighbourhoods
Whoever is Hastings’ new leader, let’s go to Wigan!
You and I and the other 95,000 Hastings inhabitants have no vote in the election that will happen tomorrow (17/2/20). Just 23 Labour councillors will choose the person who will lead our town for the next few years. Will we … Continue reading
Posted in Hastings, Self-renovating neighbourhoods
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Heart Break – Ore Valley let down again
The decision to sell the former power station site at Ore Valley to a private developer rather than to Heart of Hastings community land trust is finally sinking in for me, a fortnight after it was announced. This is how … Continue reading
A Great Leap Forwards
The Observer Building, Hastings Continue reading
A working life as a community activist
Jess Steele talk to 200+ Year 7 and Year 8 students at Helenswood School, 25/1/19. 4 things that help you get ready for the future that you can’t see – all of them underpinned by READING Continue reading
How the Money Works Part 2: Rock House
(See also Part 1: Hastings Pier: How the Money Works) Until we as citizens understand ‘how the money works’ when it comes to developing land and buildings we will always be disadvantaged – land and buildings are where power is … Continue reading
Posted in Hastings, JRS website, Self-renovating neighbourhoods
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Investing Upside Down (ppt)
Here’s a link to the slides I showed yesterday at the Labour Party #NewEconomics conference in Southampton. Plus the narrative notes. Investing Upside Down – Jess Steele Investing Upside Down – narrative
I am losing my heart to Ore Valley
I feel like a love-struck teenager. I’ve always been in love with places, and always attracted to the underdogs – my towns Deptford and Hastings and all the other-people’s-places that I fall in love with: Blackpool, Scarborough, Bradford, Greater Manchester, Liverpool 8. If … Continue reading
1,000 Days
Jericho Road Solutions is 1,000 days old today, and I’m determined to carve out a little time to reflect on the experience and some of the lessons so far. It’s been an honour to work with ambitious, stubborn, creative leaders … Continue reading
America Ground Pow Wow!
The first America Ground Pow Wow, held on 6th October, aimed to maintain and expand a local conversation which was kicked off by White Rock Trust earlier this year to ask the questions: is gentrification happening, if so is it a … Continue reading
Developer Stress
My favourite definition of an entrepreneur is someone who sets out to do something without controlling the resources to do it. I’ve been an entrepreneur a long time. Since my dad got me to write a history of Deptford in … Continue reading
Roller-coaster week
It’s been a roller-coaster week here in Hastings. Since handing over the pier project to Hastings Pier Charity, the White Rock Trust has been focusing on the wider neighbourhood and on the second most challenging building in town – the … Continue reading
Tackling irresponsible ownership
Tackling irresponsible ownership Continue reading
No resting place but a challenge constantly renewed
“The Great Society is not a resting place… a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us towards a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvellous products of our labor.” – Lindon Johnson Not a … Continue reading
A month on the Jericho Road
So it’s been a month since launching Jericho Road Solutions and I’m in reflective mood. I chose to leave a good job at Locality and start out on my own because I want to be directly involved in local transformations … Continue reading
Manchester Greater
I just had the second launch of Jericho Road Solutions – this time in Manchester. Another basement of another pub, this time very informal and no high-heeled speeches on wobbly tables. But with great people – community organisers from cohort … Continue reading
Speech at the launch of Jericho Road Solutions, 15th May 2013
Welcome, and thank you for coming to wet the baby’s head. I’m going to revisit a speech I first gave in November 2010 which was the first time I used the Jericho Road quote. Goes to show you never know … Continue reading
Welfare reform & communities
Today’s second speech was at Respublica’s event to launch Julian Dobson’s excellent report “Responsible Recovery: A social contract for local growth”. Welfare reform and communities Jess Steele, Locality Innovation Director & Chair of CREATE Consortium I’ve worked for the past … Continue reading
Posted in Community Allowance, Self-renovating neighbourhoods
Tagged government, poor neighbourhoods
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East London – 10 years of regeneration
I gave two speeches today. The first was at an event organised by Community Links in Canning Town. REGENERATION OF EAST LONDON [I’m going to see if you can multi-task! While I’m talking, sketch a little map of a bit … Continue reading
Self-renovating neighbourhoods
The old regeneration is dead, or should be. New regeneration will be driven by local people as agents of neighbourhood change, connected through solidarity networks, with the state and markets as enablers. It will focus on the fine grain of the lived neighbourhood, abjuring all silos and proactively weaving new fabrics of ownership and responsibility for the built and social environment. Inspired by stories of ‘accidental’ renewal arising from the clear self-interest of groups of local people, this paper introduces the self-renovating neighbourhood. It defines regeneration as the unleashing of trapped resources to nurture transformational local change, and makes a call to action to unlock people, land and buildings, and common bond equity capital to rebuild Britain from the ground up. Continue reading
Posted in Self-renovating neighbourhoods, Thinking
Tagged neighbourhoods, regeneration
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Spinning Plates 