Building Strong Communities

A community hub should be a physical space, always. If this was anything less than a brick and mortar space, owned by members of the community or the council (without any threat of eviction), and situated in London's town centres, then it will not be successful. These spaces must be accessible to all (in a way that virtual spaces are not) and could be private (locally owned) businesses as well. We do not want more big money coming into our neighbourhoods and destroying them, and we do not want any partnerships between non-local businesses and the council. We do not want community hubs to be subjected to the whims of the council, who often see fit to raise the rents so that they can get more lucrative tenants. Great community hubs include: Elephant and Castle shopping centre (maybe ask Peter John what happened to that one), the Latin Village (also under threat). We really need an end to the destruction of communities by the market and ever increasing rents. The GLA needs to protect pre-existing community hubs, and prove to vulnerable communities that they can do this, before it can even think about creating new ones. What's to stop these hubs being destroyed in turn?

A 'community hub' for me is an ecologically sustainable get-together for local people who want to work together to further an idea (that - in due course - is actually being listened to).

As it stands, there is no point though for that the Mayor continues to obliterate London with unsuitable developments everywhere.
The Mayor leaves no space, no site, nothing at all for any sort of 'community' to develop for his incessant appetite for ever more destructive high-rises.

Individual residential streets can be 'community hubs' all of their own. My Peckham street some while ago had a problem with busses using our road of old terraced houses that were inadequate with their early 1900s, sometimes negligible, Victorian built foundations. The busses used our road as a terminus route by way of rejoining its return circuit. In the process we found our houses shook and our windows rattled alarmingly every time a heavy bus passed in our narrow road. We got together as a street and petitioned local councillors who helped get the terminus bus route changed along more appropriate wider and better founded roads. As well ~ we already know of many online 'hubs' particularly of Facebook online which delineate friendship or sharing of history in or of specific areas of London. Then ~ there are friends groups of certain 'London green space's or of 'activist groups' looking to call local politics to account when residential areas are impacted by poor, irrelevant and insensitive commercial development. I am a member of The Peckham Society, Friends of Nunhead Cemetery (FONC) and Friends of Brockley & Ladywell Cemeteries (FOBLC) all of which have their own websites where events, engagement and 'community activity' is involved.

A community hub for me is a strong well knit family/community where everyone brings there own spice having the same vision to grow together! Supporting one another to achieve the best results for each other and it's environment!

It should be a place where the community can get direct access to support groups, activites and important info from it's local borough

As an engagement officer I’ve been desperately trying to get support/funding for this for over 4 years. Doors have been closed in my face repeatedly!

It’s not about just opening community spaces it’s about activating them and making sure they have a programme that meets whole community need. Most of them are clinical spaces, without any design thinking. A community hub is an affordbacle space for the whole community to socialise. Just like wealthy people pay for.

A community hub does all the thing above and more. Near my home there was a perfect community hub- Play, Sow and Grow. It had community gardening, community cooking, events, youth programmes and classes for literacy numeracy and language- but also sewing classes and art classes.The local Brownie troupe used it yet bad organisation at the charity which ran it and short sightedness at Newham council saw it closed. It costs very little to keep these thing going- it had lots of patronage and support from the community, and yet it was closed then months later reopened by the council with a much, much smaller programme- it must have cost thousands more than just funding it a little would have- a whole new system was put in place, and I don't know anyone from the community who is still involved. Shortsighted, stupid and sad.

Bikestormz, PemPeople & Livesy Exchange, Notting Hill Carnival - architecture of London being inhabited, reappropriated, by DIY initiatives set up by residents in that area.

Hubs - so 2000s. I'm thinking colourful CBBC graphics, and tatty beanbags. In my opinion its not about building community hubs, its about building and developing the urban / social and environmental infrastructure so it can provide life affirming spaces that are either temporary due to its sustainability agenda, or built to last and be resilient, yet whereby both types of spaces can be freely used by all.

Check out @free.s_p_a_c_e on instagram for more examples of this.

I'd love to see more segregated cycle lanes and pedestrianised zones, with plenty of planters and benches, especially through the centres of town so that the space on high streets and in front of parades of shops can become communal spaces again rather than car parks. Removing cars and vehicular traffic from the centres of towns just makes the atmosphere so much more pleasant, improves the air, and makes people (or certainly me, at least) want to spend more time there.

There's a real problem with eager lanyard wearers bouncing into neighborhoods where they don't live, keen to set up "hubs", offer support and rescue the people who do live there from our clearly low calibre lives. Alongside this judge and improve the plebs agenda, our libraries are being run down, our pubs turned into luxury flats, our street markets and local shops close and our terrible social and private landlords alike, continue to put up our rents and neglect the buildings we live in. We don't need hubs, we need community land trust and housing coops, allotments, youth services, nurseries, thriving libraries and the small everyday shops, hairdressers, normal non-hipster cafes, pubs cinemas and arts centres to stay open or be reopened.