The recognition of confusion

Yesterday one of the papers decided it was a good idea to let us all know that supermarkets that sell daffs have been asked to make sure that people are aware that they arent a vegetable and therefore not to eat them. And needless to say on social media there was an immediate backlash, with comments such as who "would be so stupid" abounding. And I guess to us, to the converted who know what ingredients look like and understand that narcissi are poisonous, its pretty basic knowledge and something we are unlikely to do. But, the question is, what if you dont.

What if you dont cook from scratch? 

What if you dont recognise certain veg? 

What if you cant read the label?

Now some might raise their eyebrows at these questions but let me tell you a tale of an afternoon I had last year.

During Food Connections Festival in Bristol there is an awesome series of lunches run by, among others, Fareshares Surplus Supper Club. The food is cooked by the chefs from the supper club from food that sound otherwise be wasted, along with several people from the immediate community, which in this case was the Silai Centre in Easton, an amazing place where there is a nursery, the Single Parent Action Network (SPAN) offices and several other community organisations. The ladies who had helped the chefs were all Somali, and they told us some things that really made me sit up and think. The most shocking and sad of these things for me was that whilst they feel theyre struggling to be a part of the community, that there are also huge issues surrounding food. One lady described attending a class where they were to make leek and potato soup, and how she had felt in that class not recognising a leek, let alone what to do with it. Not knowing which end was to eat, whether any of it should be thrown away or if parts of it were poisonous. And then knowing that her English wasnt good enough to be able to ask someone. It was clear this was causing serious issues both for this lady and her friends and fortunately the SPAN had picked up on the issues and begun classes that were accessible to this community. But what of the many other pockets of new communities across the city or, actually, countrywide? 

I cant imagine being in that place, and I genuinely hope neither I or anyone I know ever are. Feeding ourselves, our families and loved ones should be something we can take for granted. And more importantly something we are prepared to help people with if we see them struggling. Imagine not feeling that you could feed your family on top of the struggles of a new country and not being able to access help to change that.

As Emma Cooper has pointed out today in her blog, Chinese Chives dont look that dissimilar to Daffs just before they break into flower and lets assume that the public health body that asked for this to be done has done so because people have made the dreadful mistake already. Suddenly its a truly tragic and human story, that could be touching any of us who live in a multi-cultural and vibrant city. I say shame on the papers for reporting it in a way that was open to mickey taking and good on the overrun public health organisations for getting their concern out into the public sphere. 

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Expanding our environmental view

This is a piece I wrote for the Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft but Ive also shared it here as I think its an interesting topic that many dont quite see. The environment is not just land in the countryside, or parks and gardens, but its avery space we inhabit, icluding our homes and so we need to expand our view of environmental issues to cover everything that covers. Which, I might add, is pretty much everything.....

In 1980 the right to buy council housing became law in the new Housing Act and thousands of people up and down the country achieved what they had never thought possible-a home that they owned. Little wrong with that  I hear you cry but in reality what happened was that, instead of reinvesting the monies raised by building new social housing for a population that was growing exponentially, that money was ring fenced by the then Tory government, and the growth of building of social homes has steadily declined ever since, whilst the prices of housing has risen at rate that is almost unbelievable. With land being seen as an asset, it’s cost has risen and average house prices, which includes the prices of all those once council houses, have risen alongside that at a rate that soon will make home owner ship by anyone other than the wealthy impossible. Average house prices in 1977 were still less than £10,000 where today the average price is around £190.00 nationally and in London and the South East that figure rises to just over £400,000.

Of course for the generation that were able to buy their council homes this has lead to the possibility of making huge sums of money on homes that were sold for enormously more than they were purchased for and these homes are now a part of the national housing stock and sold as such, meaning that they are now generally not affordable homes at all. Indeed the governments’s idea of an affordable home is one that is 20% less than its average cost which is still completely out of the average wageholders budget of £26,000 per year. With mortgage companies generally asking for at least a 5% deposit and often far more we have created a situation where we will have future generations renting and never being able to get onto the property ladder, already saddled with huge debts from university fees and relying on more and more unscrupulous landlords as need for housing outweighs availability.

Constantly we hear the cry that we must leave the world a better place for our children and our children’s children. That we must care for greenbelt, encourage more conservation areas and SSSI but rarely do we see housing mentioned as a part of this. However, how can it not be? Our environment is not just the outdoors, the countryside or parks, but it is everything we live in. It is our cafes, those areas in city centres between buildings, that grassed area behind the fence on an estate. Our environment is the space in which we live.

So on Stokes Croft, Bristol’s independent district where creativity is at the centre of so many lives, how can we look at a building that is threatened with a London developer’s plan of gentrification as any other than an environmental issue. Stokes croft, the area known for its incredible squats, its street art and its independent spirit, who fought as a community to keep Tesco at bay cannot be the place to put a gated community in any way. In fact, frankly, gated communities, designed with mainly safety and security as its main criteria, cannot possibly help maintain any form of independent spirit. The fact that only 7% of the dwellings will be affordable and that is likely to be just the 20% lower rate rather than social housing, in an area where the housing crisis can be seen every day, on the streets, ought to be seen as a scandal and a disaster for our future generations, rather than a positive solution to a building that has been crumbling for many years.

Positive solutions need to be the way forwards, looking at how we ensure people are safe and secure in homes they can afford and in communities where they feel they are safe and secure. Rather than continually looking at constant development at the outer edges of our cities of box type homes, we need to look at the building stock within our cities, leaving the greenbelt alone for our ever growing population, and looking at the amount of buildings that could be turned into decent homes within the city, where people will be able to be car free, and rather than looking at bus routes that stretch ever further out of the city, the routes can concentrate on the areas that are already populated. With a larger population living within city boundaries, parks budgets and budgets for urban landscaping could increase, helping the city to cope with rising temperatures due to our changing climate. 

With all this in mind surely at the centre of the Carriageworks plan should be community. The Carriageworks Action Group and Knightstone Housing have put together a plan with community at it’s heart, and that must be the plan that is implemented at the very least. Imagine a beautiful city centre community building, with homes that are affordable and with the quantity of social housing that Bristol city Council recommends in all housing schemes of 30%-40% available to people struggling to pay the ever increasing private rents in the area. Imagine that it has beautiful and productive gardens that are open for the entire community of Stokes Croft to use and which people can safely use as a path through to the area at the back of the building 24 hours a day. With small shops and workshops built in at affordable rents on the ground floor, it can also become a centre for micro businesses to begin and flourish, creating a truly local economy and holding the money spent within that economy, adding to it’s wealth, both financial and creative.

This should not be a dream. This is the vision of green and sustainable living that we must move towards if we are to create a world that we are proud to leave for our children. As a species we must stop looking at houses as assets and begin to look at them as homes. Only then can we leave a planet that we are proud of for future generations.

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