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I remember sitting in a drafty parish hall back in ’98, watching a perfectly reasonable group of neighbours go grey in the face just trying to decipher a single piece of council correspondence. They’d been told they needed a solicitor… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty community hall back in the nineties, watching a well-meaning neighbour try to explain why a new playground was needed. He had a heart of gold, but he spent ten minutes rambling about the local… Continue reading

I remember sitting in the back of a drafty community hall in 1994, clutching a lukewarm tea and watching three councillors debate a park bench for forty minutes while the actual residents sat in stifling silence. It felt like watching… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty community hall back in the nineties, staring at a sixty-page spreadsheet that looked more like a telephone directory than a financial plan. The local councillor kept insisting that if we just understood the “macro-economic… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty community hall back in ’94, watching a perfectly good neighbourhood improvement plan wither away simply because nobody could prove what the council had promised us six months prior. People will tell you that getting… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, listening to a group of well-meaning residents vent about the broken streetlights on High Street. They had spent three hours shouting at each other, but when I asked what… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty parish hall back in ’94, watching a perfectly good community project fall apart simply because the chairperson thought a “chat” over tea was the same thing as a formal request. People often think that… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a perfectly good neighbourhood scheme dissolve into nothing because the chairperson thought sending a polite, vague email was enough to get things moving. People often think that knowing… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty community hall back in ’94, staring at a pile of glossy, overpriced brochures for “consultancy firms” that promised to revitalize our high street. It was a total waste of time. People think that learning… Continue reading