in our backyard:the social promise of environmentalism

Ken Worpole

with responses fromHazel Blears MPDon Foster MPDamian Green MP

“green alliance...

We are grateful to Groundwork for their support of thiswork.

In Our Backyard: The social promise of environmentalismby Ken Worpolewith responses from

Hazel Blears MPDon Foster MPDamian Green MP

Edited by Rebecca WillisDesigned by Rachel ButterworthPublished by Green Alliance, September 2000£10.00

2000 Green Alliance

ISBN 09531060 2 1

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acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people forinvaluable help in writing this pamphlet, byattending discussion groups or sending writtencomments - and sometimes both: Kate Burningham,Tony Burton, Ian Christie, Robin Murray and DianeWarburton. Thanks are also due to Ian Thorn ofGroundwork for supporting the project, as well asshaping some of the arguments, and to RebeccaWillis, Paul Jefferiss and Andie Allen of GreenAlliance for attending its progress from start tofinish so smoothly.

Finally I’d like to thank the MPs who gave timeto discuss some of the issues in the paper and whoseresponses are published here: Hazel Blears MP, DonFoster MP, and Damian Green MP.

the author

Ken Worpole is an independent researcher andwriter specialising in issues of urban and culturalpolicy. He is an associate of the think tanks Comediaand Demos, and author of Richer Futures: Fashioning a newpolitics (Earthscan 1999).

Groundwork

Groundwork is working towards a society madeup of sustainable communities which are vibrant,healthy and safe, which respect the local and globalenvironment and where individuals and enterpriseprosper. Its purpose is to help build sustainablecommunities through joint environmental action.

Green Alliance

Green Alliance is one of the UK’s foremostenvironmental groups. An independent charity, itsmission is to promote sustainable development byensuring that the environment is at the heart ofdecision-making. It works with senior people ingovernment, parliament, business and theenvironmental movement to encourage new ideas,dialogue and constructive solutions.

new politics series

Green Alliance’s New Politics pamphlets provide aplatform for eminent thinkers to examine interac-tions between current political debate and environ-mental thinking. The views expressed are those ofthe authors.

Other pamphlets in the New Politics series are:l Sustaining Europe: A common cause for the European Union

in the new century, Ian Christie, December 1999l Mind over Matter: Greening the new economy, Charles

Leadbeater, September 2000

contents

summary 1the politics of environmental awareness 2poor people, poor environments 9renewing the public realm 14taking action 18responses

Hazel Blears MP 22Don Foster MP 25Damian Green MP 28

1 summary

This pamphlet explores the ways in which environmental projects can help provide a new focus anddirection to many of the wider problems of the ‘social agenda’, as currently understood by the majorpolitical parties. Concerns of environmentalists have often been seen as separate from - and evenindifferent towards - issues of poverty, crime, anti-social forms of behaviour and other aspects of socialexclusion. Yet a closer look at people’s widely expressed concerns about the quality and management oflocal environments often reveals a clear overlap between social and environmental factors.

New forms of ‘environmental citizenship’ might be the best way to tackle current public indifferenceto the mainstream political process, developing more active and productive forms of democraticresponsibility and accountability. Such processes are likely to enhance that movement towards greaterneighbourhood self-sufficiency and self-management which all political parties today claim to seek. Inshort, many of the strategic social goals set out by the political parties can be achieved through forms ofenvironmental regeneration. The pamphlet principally addresses these issues at the neighbourhood level,though it argues that at all levels, environmental improvement and social justice are invariably interwoven.

Following the main essay, representatives from the three main political parties offer responses,discussing how their party is working to meet the challenges that In Our Backyard sets out.

2the politics of environmentalawareness

The environmental movement in the UK todaystands at a crossroads. The goodwill felt towards itfor its past campaigning on behalf of endangeredspecies and tropical rain forests, and other distantand exotic activities, seems tohave reached a plateau. Thecloser environmentalists moveon to home territory - raisingissues about the long termsustainability of Western levelsof resource consumption,challenging the conventionaleconomics of growth, andputting the onus for achieving radicalenvironmental change on personal and corporateresponsibility - the higher the political stakes areraised.

Political parties, which, despite espousingdifferent means, all claim to share the commongoal of increased wealth and opportunity for all,may wish to put some distance between themselvesand an environmentalism that questions whethereven current standards of living - howeverunequally distributed - are sustainable in the longterm. There has to be some way out of thisdilemma: is it possible to lead fuller lives and moreenvironmentally responsible ones at the same time?This is not just a question for environmentalists. It

is one of the key political questions of our time. Yetso often political parties keep it out of vision,because of the large-scale implications it has forhow we might do politics differently in the future.

However, ‘business as usual’is no longer sustainable. Thepolitical commentator AndrewMarr suggests that the movetowards environmentalism,slow though it may be, is nowinexorable:

The evidence of climate change piles up with ominous andirresistible force. It affects every sentient voter, every gardener,everyone insuring their property, people living by coasts and rivers... It is still true that, asked to choose between lower globalemissions and keeping a second car, most voters keep the car. Butit is becoming less true. Progress is infuriatingly slow andconventional politics remains clogged with old thinking. Therewill be many reverses to come. But the trend is one way.1

Rather than simply wait for furtherenvironmental degradation to occur and jolt peopleinto awareness, political parties should exploreways in which people’s apprehensions about theirmore immediate environment could be channeledinto more positive political aspirations and goals.

“Is it possible to lead fuller lives and more environmentally responsible ones at the same time? This is not just a question for environmentalists but a key political question of our time.”

This requires a re-thinking of what we mean bythe term ‘environment’, and a more nuancedunderstanding of popular attitudes, particularly byenvironmentalists.

A low priority?

It is a widely-held belief that the British peopleremain basically uninterested in environmentalissues, and as a result, politicians pay only lipservice to the green agenda. Recycling levels areamongst the lowest in the developed world. Thevote for green candidates remains low, andenvironmental issues rarely get highlighted in themedia, other than as scare stories about thepotential consequences of GMfoods, or dramatic photo-stories about hunt saboteursand the future of thecountryside. These arefrequently presented as humaninterest stories - about thethreat to personal health orhistoric cultural traditionsraised by environmentalistconcerns. There is rarely a moreconsidered explication of whether current levels ofconsumption and exploitation of natural resourcesin the developed world can be maintained withoutrisking global environmental catastrophe. Likewise,a continuing debate about what is meant by‘growth’ rarely features, not surprisingly, given themedia’s dependence on consumer advertising.

Some of those with a particular commitment tosocial issues characterise the environmental

movement as ‘middle class’ or anti-modern, seeingenvironmentalists as a small minority fuelled by asense of guilt about hedonistic lifestyles and theover-consumption of material goods. Or they areseen as belonging to a long-standing history ofrural protectionism, in which environmentaldegradation becomes a reason for keeping theurban majority from visiting the countryside. Inthis view, the problems of consumer over-indulgence or affronted rural sensibilities seemtrivial in comparison with other political priorities,particularly for the present government which hasmade a flagship of its policies for tackling urbancrime, poverty and social exclusion in ‘the realworld’.

The recent Fabian pamphletby Michael Jacobs, EnvironmentalModernisation: The new Labour agenda,clearly touched a nerve withinthe Labour government, and hasquickly become one of the moreinfluential political polemics ofrecent times, though whether itwill achieve the politicaloutcomes it desires remains

another matter.2 Jacobs describes an “inescapablefeeling that the environment does not really figurein the New Labour ‘project’.” He claims that“almost uniquely among significant areas of policy,on the environment New Labour doesn’t seem toknow what it thinks.” This is strong stuff.

Yet to what extent does the environmentalquestion figure in the political philosophies of theother main parties? William Hague, Leader of the

3

“There is rarely a considered explication of whether currentlevels of consumption and exploitation of natural resources in the developed world can be maintained without risking global environmental catastrophe.”

Conservative Party, believes that a combination ofmodernising market forces combined withindividual responsibility will solve the problem,and has said that “we must trust and inspirevolunteers, local communities and organisations topreserve and improve their own communities.” 3

Charles Kennedy, Leader of theLiberal Democrats, believes thatlarge changes in public attitudesare required, and that “Withouta ‘green culture’, governmentwill legislate in vain.”4 Whilethe political leaders hope to seeimportant changes made, theyare expecting individuals andcommunities to take the lead,wary of moving too far ahead of public opinion -particularly where environmentalism calls intoquestion other political priorities the parties mayendorse. Kennedy has been honest enough toadmit that “Even we, Liberal Democrats, too manyof us, certainly myself included, have ducked sometough questions. We haven’t talked about theenvironment nearly enough in the past few years.”Is it not time for the political parties to re-thinktheir position on these vital concerns?

Through the other end of the telescope

In terms of the wider political landscape, theoutlook seems grim. Yet through the other end ofthe telescope, looking at environmental awarenessin its most local manifestations, the situation isquite different. Survey after survey of publicopinion about loyalty and attachment to place -home, street and neighbourhood - reveals that an

acute sensitivity to environmental factorsdominates people’s concerns and aspirations.

A national study of a cross section of UKresidents, carried out for the Tidy Britain Group,found 34 per cent ‘very interested’ in

environmental issues, and theproportion of people ‘fairlyinterested’ in environmentalissues increased to 53 per cent.Only 10 per cent were ‘not veryinterested’ and only 2 per cent‘not interested at all’.5 However,what the respondents in thissurvey defined as environmentalissues were vandalism, dog mess,

littered streets, unsafe bathing water, roadsidedumping - the environmental issues which theyfelt impinged upon their daily life and interests,and which made life less pleasant and enjoyable.

Similar results emerged from a studyidentifying Patterns of neighbourhood dissatisfaction inEngland, in which crime, dogs, poor leisurefacilities, vandalism and litter were the majorperceived issues of area dissatisfaction.6 In a similarstudy, part of the early Social Exclusion Unitpublication, Bringing Britain together, people cite thetop four ‘major dislikes’ of their area as:crime/feeling unsafe, vandalism/threateningbehaviour, unsupervised youngsters, litter/generalappearance.7

On a smaller scale, the English MP, DenisMcShane, recently described a Rotherham survey ofvoters’ concerns asking people to itemise the issues

4

“While the political leaders hope to see important changes made, they areexpecting individuals and communities to take the lead, wary of moving too far ahead of public opinion.”

which concerned them most: “by far the biggestissue was litter.” 8 The lesson for politicians thatMcShane picked up was that “all politics is local,”and that national politicians ignore these issues attheir peril.

Environmentalism is ordinary

We could choose to ignore such surveys, orrelegate popular concerns about litter, graffiti andneglected walkways and parks to the minorpolitical league. Yet in survey after survey ofhouseholders’ preferences about where they wantto live, or what is most wrong about where theycurrently live, a clean, well-ordered place figureshighly in most people’s aspirations. This surelymakes a good starting point for a social politicsthat embodies an environmental vision as well. The

critic RaymondWilliams once wrotethat “culture isordinary.” It greatlyhelps to see thatenvironmentalism is‘ordinary’ too. Itgoes to the veryheart of the waypeople live from dayto day, and

determines whether they find this experiencerewarding and enjoyable, or frustrating andembittering. The problem is that ordinariness isoften politically invisible.

If litter is beyond the view of Westminsterpoliticians, take another ‘ordinary’ environmental

issue: walking. Walking is the one of the mostpopular and benign forms of human transport,making up 80 per cent of journeys less than onemile in length, yet it is completely marginal to theGovernment’s understanding of transport policy. AsBen Plowden of the Pedestrians’ Association hasneatly put it, walking is the glue that binds thetransport systemtogether.9 Most travelis still local, withover 70 per cent ofall trips, and even 56per cent of car trips, under five miles. Yet, to quoteone recent report, “pedestrian planning is in itsinfancy.” 10 So, too, is planning for cycling.

So often, politicians and transport professionalsare hooked on the big schemes. Mainstreamtransport policy and practice continues to assumethat long journeys are more important than shortjourneys, even though common sense suggests thatescorting children to school, the pensioner’s dailyshopping trip, the business transaction conductedin the street or in the cafe are as socially andeconomically important as the motorwaycommuter journey. Environmentalism oftendelivers in the detail. The ordinary can be veryradical and transformative indeed.

Another thing that social policy andenvironmental policy share is an understanding ofhow the small things in life are linked to thebigger waves and currents. Small problems can leadto bigger ones, and uncollected rubbish and apoorly maintained physical environment can intime engender social breakdown. A recent survey

5

“A clean, well-ordered placefigures highly in most people’s aspirations. This surely makes a good starting point for a socialpolitics that embodies an environmental vision as well.”

“The ordinary can be veryradical and transformativeindeed.”

of neighbourhoods under social stress emphasisedthe embitterment produced by the closure,boarding up or, even worse, demolition of local

public andcommercialbuildings, giving “theoverwhelmingimpression toresidents that theseneighbourhoods

were on a downward trajectory.” 11 Poorlymaintained neighbourhoods create a sense ofpowerlessness, a world in a state of entropy -exactly a parallel of that powerlessness andpessimism which affect some globalenvironmentalists when they consider the prospectsof our ‘runaway world’.

Degraded environments produce what IanChristie has called the ‘Nothing Ever Seems toHappen Syndrome’ whereby long-standingeyesores, accident blackspots, leaking school roofs,crime hotspots or fly-tipping sites are recognisedby everybody as a problem, and yet no action istaken, or can be ‘afforded’. This fuels publiccynicism about politicians and the political process,and these places become a visible emblem ofdecision-makers’ distance and indifference. WhenWendy Thompson became Chief Executive ofNewham Council, one of her first initiatives was alocal ‘eyesores’ campaign, jointly run with a localnewspaper. People were invited to nominate theirmost hated local eyesores in the borough, andthose responsible for the 20 most frequently citedwere publicly named and shamed into action.Sometimes these were council-owned eyesores,

sometimes private, sometimes utility works. Thesuccess of this scheme reaped greater publicapproval than many other regeneration projects -and it cost hardly anything to achieve.

Just as the ‘broken window syndrome’ becamea paradigm of the new zero tolerance policingpolicies - based on the premise that if you don’tquickly address the small infringements andfelonies, then the big crimes shortly follow -perhaps politicians should be arguing for a zerotolerance policy towards broken pavements,unkempt parks, leaking school buildings, trafficnoise and unnecessary CO2 emissions. It is not justpoliticians who should get back to the basics.Environmentalists themselves have often shown toolittle regard for the everyday environmentalconcerns of ordinary people.

Half full or half empty? The paradox ofenvironmental awareness

How do we begin to explain this widespreadcontradiction between low levels of nationalpolitical concern and activity about environmentalissues, and high levels of local concern? Is the cupof environmental awareness in the UK half full orhalf empty? Perhaps the problem derives from aconfusion of vocabulary and definition. Thelanguage that we are starting to use to describeissues of economy, environmentalism and socialpolicy has to work very hard to cover all theapparent contradictions between them, a pointmade strongly in the recent Department for theEnvironment, Transport and the Regions (DETR)

6

“Poorly maintained neighbourhoods createa sense of powerlessness, a world in a state of entropy.”

report, Towards a Language of Sustainable Development. Thisreport states clearly and presciently that:

The language of Sustainable Development is one ofenvironmental, economic and social politics. It is born out of adesire to embrace a number of historically-opposed politicalpositions into a different and future-oriented concept. It is not solong ago, for example, that the notion of environmental protectionand economic growth were considered to be mutually exclusive bysome, and only recently that a broad consensus has been createdaround the reconciliation of the two into SustainableDevelopment.12

Even as the vocabulary of SustainableDevelopment struggles to reconcile many of thesehitherto competing positions,in most arenas of life therestill remain two distinctconstellations of ideas andissues which cluster at theopposite poles of the conceptof ‘the environment’.

First, there is the set oflarge geo-political issues todo with climate change, the loss of biodiversityacross the world, the depletion of many of theworld’s non-renewable natural resources and largescale environmental despoliation. This is a worlddominated by large NGOs, scientific bodies,multinational corporations, national andinternational politicians, dominated by maleexperts trading statistics and competing globalscenarios. This is ‘big picture’ politics, conductedon the international stage, and to which nation-states are willing or reluctant signatories. These

issues rarely make the front pages of thebroadsheets, and hardly get a mention in thetabloids, even though their implications areenormous and far-reaching. National politics israrely fought over the detail of such internationalcommitments.

Second, at the other end of the telescope, thereis that passionate concern with ‘the environment’of the street and neighbourhood, whichpersistently emerges in the opinion polls, whereissues of litter, graffiti, street crime, traffic noiseand density, and poorly maintained utilities andpublic services figure prominently and repeatedly.Such local issues are beginning to gain national

attention because, as theUrban Task Force reportshows, these are the reasonswhy so many people are inflight from the cities.13 Theseconcerns are often moststrongly articulated bywomen - particularly womenwith families - who also playthe larger part in local

neighbourhood amenity and ‘environmental’campaigns. The role played by women inneighbourhood regeneration is a specific themeemphasised in the recent Joseph RowntreeFoundation report, Joined Up Places? for example.14

It is tempting to see these as separate politicalworlds, one the province of national andinternational politicians and experts, the other theprovince of local councillors and neighbourhoodvoluntary organisations - and that it is a matter of

7

“The attitudinal and organisationalchanges needed to bring about a more sustainable world are morelikely to start in the home, the street and the neighbourhoodthan they are at the internationalconference table.”

chance or contingency that they happen to take onsuch distinct gender patterns. But of course theyare not separate. They are deeply interconnected.

The attitudinal andorganisationalchanges needed tobring about amore sustainableworld are more

likely to start in the home, the street and theneighbourhood than they are at the internationalconference table. Look after the environmentalpennies, it could be argued, and the sustainablepounds may end up looking after themselves. Ifpolitical parties - and environmentalists - continueto delude themselves that the ‘local’ parish-pumpissues of litter, broken pavements, vandalised andunstaffed railway stations are not environmentalissues in the very deepest sense, then they could bemaking one of the most serious political errors of ageneration.

Many roads to environmental well-being

Many politicians continue to believe thatenvironmental issues are the concern orprerogative of a particular party - the Green Party -and are therefore party-specific and highlyterritorialised. While the Green Party may befocused on environmental issues, it is largelybecause the other parties have ignored them for solong. Yet all the major political traditions in Britainhave strong roots in ecological and even ruralistconcerns and affinities. Whether it is the languageof ‘the common wealth’ or of ‘stewardship’, fewpolitical or religious discourses avoid any reference

to the importance of living in harmony with theearth and its natural splendour and fecundity -something to be shared by all.

All political traditions, then, already possesssome of the intellectual resources with which toembrace a more environmentally consciouspolitics. As the Liberal Democrats have alreadydiscovered, close attention to the minutiae of localworries about litter, broken street lighting, and lowlevels of public care and maintenance have inrecent years led their march towards power in localgovernment elections. Theyhave reaped the politicalrewards of taking people’slocal environmentalapprehensions seriously. Inthe next section a numberof other connectionsbetween environmentalismand wider quality of lifeissues are explored, demonstrating that anenvironmental perspective can add considerablevalue to the achievement of other political goals.

8

“All the major political traditions in Britain have strong roots in ecological and even ruralist concerns and affinities.”

“Look after the environmentalpennies and the sustainablepounds may end up lookingafter themselves.”

9 poor people, poor environments

Poor people, and disadvantaged communities,often get penalised twice. Not only do they have tolive with fewer economic resources, they often -indeed almost always - live inenvironments which exact anadditional toll on their well-being,through being unhealthier, lessaccessible, and literally moreexpensive places in which tosurvive. The poor are more likely tolive on inner city estates whereovercrowding, high trafficdensities, and lack of amenities are more common.They may live in deprived industrial areas wherejobs have disappeared, and the industries whichonce supported them have left a legacy ofcontamination and blight.15 High incidences ofcancer and other serious systemic health problemsattached to specific localities are often hushed upor regarded as exceptional aberrations, despite thetrend toward ‘democratising’ these kinds ofenvironmental risks.

The poor are more likely to live in areas with“two to three times the level of poor housing,vandalism and dereliction.”16 In suchneighbourhoods, children and adults have greaterdifficulty in getting to shops that sell fresh food, orto supermarkets where prices are cheaper than in

small neighbourhood shops. Poor transport linksonly heighten their sense of exclusion. 17 Thedecline of cheap public transport has been a

particular blow to the poorest sectionsof the community, denying themopportunities to seek work elsewhere,or other kinds of engagement with thewider society. Inadequate and expensivepublic transport services have left manypoorer communities in both rural andurban areas isolated and sequestered.

The housing that poor people live in is likely tobe poorly insulated and less well maintained,leading to greater energy consumption, and thehigher fuels bills which accompany it. Those whohave cars are likely to own older vehicles which areless fuel-efficient, and frequently need repairing.18

In these circumstances, Diane Warburton hasargued, “poverty and environmental degradationare symptoms of the weaknesses of the overalleconomic and political system,” which traps suchcommunities in a double-bind of decreasingexpectations and powerlessness.19

A badly maintained environment compoundsthe negative image of such places. As Forrest andKearns note,

“The decline of cheap public transport has been a particular blow to the poorest sections of the community.”

Young people in the Liverpool neighbourhoods were clear thatthe negative external image of the area was largely perpetuated bya poor physical environment: ‘People who come down here don’tsee it as a nice place … they only see the shit we live in.’Liverpool residents wanted comprehensive improvement in thehousing and environment in order to change theirneighbourhoods’ image. In talking about empty houses indisrepair, they said: ‘If they did all the houses. Yeah, make it lookpretty…people aren’t afraid of pretty things’. 20

If poverty often penalises people twice, onceeconomically, and then environmentally, the waysin which poor environments can be improved can,

likewise, deliver adouble dividend.However, this isdependent uponthe processes ofenvironmentalimprovement andrenewal. Ifoutsiders arebrought in to make

all the improvements, then while the physicalenvironment may look better, the socialenvironment will remain untouched, possibly evenfurther undermined. After the Broadwater Farmriots, precipitated partly by high levels ofunemployment and alienation from the localpolitical process, the use of outside contractors torepair the damage caused further anger andbitterness. Since then, the estate has beenrefurbished and is now maintained by an on-siteEstate Services Manager, using the paid services oflocal residents, and the result is a much improved

environment with a greater degree of local prideand local control.21

Maintenance is the key to quality andsustainability

British architecture is currently enjoying globalprestige, and, as a result of lottery funding,glamorous new capital projects are shooting upeverywhere in Britain. But while the British may begood at building things, their reputation formaintaining them is abysmal. Maintenance is thekey to both social and environmental sustainability.Developing forms of local maintenance andmanagement, and thus stimulating the localeconomy, is as important as the physicalregeneration itself - it is much more likely to besustainable in the long term. It also provides muchstronger and more immediate feedbackmechanisms, when things go wrong or qualitystarts to slip.

A large scale review of urban regenerationprogrammes published in 1994 concluded that toomuch attention had been given to capital buildingprojects, and too littleinvestment made inpeople and theiractivities.22 Yet thislesson has been a hardone for many localauthorities to learn. Some are still wedded to ahighly centralised ‘direct labour’ approach tomaintenance and repair work (five different work-chits to be completed in order to get a leaking tap

10

“If poverty often penalisespeople twice, once economically, and then environmentally, the ways in which poor environments can be improved can deliver double dividends.”

“While the British may be good at building things, their reputation for maintenance is abysmal.”

fixed). Others insist that all such work be put outto tender and that the lowest price wins - andwhen the contractor goes bust as a result of under-pricing, the job is left uncompleted. Neitherapproach greatly encourages a strong sense of localownership of the management and maintenanceprogramme, or pride in the work done. Tenantsand residents, with training if necessary, are more

likely to do a decentjob looking aftertheir environmentthan outsidecontractors whocome and go.

Politicians should start to think seriously aboutregarding the provision of a good quality physicalenvironment as a public service, upon which somany other services depend. If the streets lookvandalised or poorly maintained, people are lessinclined to walk in them, and may give up goingto the park, or letting their children walk toschool, or using public transport. A safe, secure andwell maintained public realm underpins so muchthat is valuable in civic life. Yet public finances havegot into a pattern whereby savings are always madeon revenue (maintenance) costs until things turninto a crisis. Then, once again, capital spending canbe used to get things back on track for a while,until the next crisis occurs. Capital spending isregarded as investment, whereas revenue spendingis regarded as a cost. This is short-termism gonemad, as we can see from large modern publichousing estates which have had to be demolishedbecause poor maintenance allowed them todeteriorate within a few years.

In such cases, the long term sustainability ofminimal maintenance regimes is never taken intoaccount. In these situations, ‘sustainability’ as a keyprinciple of social cohesion demonstrates its powerand utility, a lesson which the experience andsuccess of Groundwork in its environmentalimprovement programmes has demonstrated onmany occasions. The processes by whichcommunities regain control of their environmentare as important as the physical improvements.

Poor environments and politicalpowerlessness

All political parties are rightly concerned withthe increasing public indifference or even hostilityto mainstream political processes. This can be seenin the declining numbers of people turning out tovote, whether in local or national elections. Arecent study of voting patterns in Europe showedthat in sub-national elections, Denmark stillmanaged an 80 per cent turnout, Germany 72 percent, France 68 per cent, Portugal 60 per cent, andthe Netherlands 54 per cent, while the UK wasbottom of the list with 40 per cent.23 In the 1998local elections, oneLiverpool wardrecorded a nine percent turnout. In theTottenhamparliamentary by-election of June 2000, there wasjust a 25 per cent poll. Low electoral turnout, lowrecycling rates: could there possibly be aconnection?

11

“A safe, secure and well maintained public realm underpins so much that is valuable in civic life.”

“Low electoral turnout, low recycling rates: could there possibly be a connection?”

The poorer people are, and the less control theyfeel they have over their lives and theirenvironments, the less likely they are to participatein the political process. A study for Charter 88, TheRoots of Democratic Exclusion, noted that:

Problems of exclusion are compounded by locality. Thosegroups of people who are most marginalised tend to beconcentrated in certain areas: either indeprived inner city districts or isolatedhousing estates on the edge of majorconurbations. The latter, in particular,often lack the basic infrastructure andfacilities for the enjoyment of afulfilling community life.24

To their credit, theGovernment’s substantialcommitment of resources totackling the issue of socialexclusion is unlikely to reap any immediatepolitical rewards. Credit is also due to the work ofthe Social Exclusion Unit in demonstrating howlinked the issues of poverty, powerlessness, anddemocratic exclusion are.

A lot of this powerlessness and rejection iscloaked by superficial forms of local auditing andgovernance. Many local authorities commissionmarket research into satisfaction with localservices, and councillors pride - or possibly delude- themselves by citing satisfaction rates of 80 percent, when to the independent observer theseservices often seem very poor indeed. People mayclaim to be ‘satisfied’ with amenities because theyare glad enough that they still exist, and worry that

expressing dissatisfaction might provide fuel forfurther cuts in services. Similarly, how is it possibleto be objectively satisfied with a local service if youhave not experienced the range in quality ofsimilar services in other local authorities, wherethey may be spending the same amount of moneyper capita to achieve double the quality andexcellence? Superficial attitudinal market research is

an over-inflated currencynow being used to evaluatelocal need and concern.More participatory forms ofauditing are badly needed,giving users of amenitiesgreater say in their deliveryand chosen outcomes.

Ian Christie also sees theproblem of engaging andinvolving populations as a

key weakness. In exploring the links between thepresent Government’s modernisation agenda, andthe possibilities offered by environmentalimprovement and sustainable development policies,he concludes that “Both perspectives share thediagnosis that central and local government havefundamentally lost the trust of their people. Theyare much too distant from ordinary citizens.” Insupporting the principle of ‘joined-up thinking’and greater cross-departmental implementation ofpolicies, he argues:

The whole-system approach is something we should be ableto apply to both the modernisation agenda as well as tosustainable development. The need to revitalise local democracy isalso at the core of both processes, calling as they do for nothing

12

“While governments endeavour to address issues of poverty through benefits, training programmes and educational initiatives, it is the placelesness of many of these programmes that undermines their power to strengthen communities and their capacity for self-organisation.”

13 less than a renaissance of civic bonds between local citizens andgovernments.” 25

But while governments endeavour to addressissues of poverty through individual and familybenefits, through training programmes andeducational initiatives, it is the placelessness ofmany of these programmes that undermines theirpower to strengthen communities and theircapacity for self-organisation. The Social ExclusionUnit’s Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal couldbe crucial here.26

Sustainable development seems to offer a wayof combining environmental issues with social

ones. Anna Dodd of Leicester City Council notesthat “Since the early 1990s, we’ve moved a longway from the ‘green circle’ to the integration ofenvironmental issues with economic and socialones. Instead of ‘green strategies’ we are nowworking to ensure that sustainable developmentunderpins key work in all areas.” 27 Developing newforms of democracy and citizenship throughenvironmental regeneration is an issue that will beexplored more fully later in this paper. Before that,another way of seeing the crucial link between thequality of the local physical environment and thepossibilities of social renewal is through therenewed interest in both the problems andopportunities represented by ‘the public realm’.

14renewing the public realm

The quality of ‘the public realm’ is a keynote ofthe Urban Task Force report, which calls for local‘public realm strategies’, to create a stronger senseof identity and quality for urban settings andenvironments. For the purposes of the Urban TaskForce report, the public realm principally describesthe condition and safety of pavements, streets,public spaces, parks, bus shelters, railway stations,and public buildings and amenities, which peopleuse on a daily basis. In short, the builtenvironment.28

This is not just an issue for the inner city ormajor conurbation; even the suburbs are beginningto look blighted in many parts of Britain. Thecontinued vitality of the suburbs has recently beencalled into question by the report Sustainable renewal ofsuburban areas, which notes theextensive deterioration of manysuburban areas where there is aloss of ‘sense of belonging’,insufficient and poorlyaccessible shops, a highconsumption of land and energy, high cardependence, and ugliness of sprawl with unsafeand neglected public spaces.29 Once again, then, thepoor quality of the physical environment is seen asa symptom of larger ills in the body politic.

Decline in the public realm is most graphicallyillustrated through its physical manifestations:boarded up and vandalised suburban railwaystations, run-down parks with burnt-out pavilions,broken pavements, unattended and uncompletedutilities works, pot-holed and poorly-maintainedroads, graffiti-scrawled walls, shops with irongrilles and shutters, poorly maintained municipallibraries and sports facilities, and so on. Physicaldereliction is not simply an eyesore: it produces invulnerable groups, particularly women, a sense ofinsecurity and danger. Therefore in a positive sense,repair of the physical fabric is a pre-condition ofthe repair of the social and civic fabric too.

But the public realm is also a relational realm, aplace where different kinds of social relations

develop, quite distinct from thoseof family or institutional life.Strangers talk to each other onpark benches, ask for directions,enjoy being one of the crowd, andassume for the most part the

goodwill and trust of others. The kindness ofstrangers is a phrase that is coming to hauntmodern political discourses, as we appreciate justhow much society is maintained by the invisiblewebs of public trust which bind people togetherand which if broken down - through ethnic or

“The poor quality of the physical environment is seen as a symptom of larger ills in the body politic.”

religious enmity and suspicion, or forms ofcommunitarian distrust and even violence - canhave disastrous results.

The ‘rules of engagement’ of public life andbehaviour need re-invigorating from time to time,and from place to place. It is here thatenvironmentalism is emerging as a significant newsource of beliefs and actions about the need fornew kinds of citizenship. It emphasises that oneindividual’s environmental pollution affectseverybody, and that the externalities of privatechoices can impact badly upon the wider publicgood. The focus on public goods - those collectivebenefits which accrue when people co-operate toprovide amenities and environments whichindividuals alone cannot provide, and indeed canindividually harm - is shared by many social policyanalysts and environmentalists alike.

Environmentalists emphasise the fact that theactions of just one individual or company can spoil

the environment forthe many - think offly-tipping, or thepollution of a river bya single company. Thepublic realmadvocates make thesame point about

social behaviour too. In fact they often combine.Just as one person riding a jet-ski close to acrowded beach can spoil the pleasures of the many,so too can the actions of a single individual makelife unpleasant, even unliveable, on a small estate,or in a park. In this and many other senses

environmental regeneration and social regenerationgo hand in hand, and can be promoted anddeveloped as a joint project.

Environmental regeneration could be thekey to social regeneration

This is certainly the case made in a recentreport for Groundwork, where Ian Christie arguesthat environmental regeneration could play the keyrole in programmes of social renewal:

Groundwork’s experience underlines how working withdeprived communities, especially through young people andschools, can help turn disadvantage into potential and real hopefor a better future. There is overwhelming evidence thatenvironmental improvement projects can be used to do much morethan making a greener, more ecologically sustainable andresponsible community. They can help improve learning, promotebetter health, create jobs and skills, and boost people’s confidenceand ability to make a difference to their prospects and to theircommunity. They can also help reconnect excluded people to themainstream by improving the physical connections between theirplace and others - through a focus on better public transportaccess, safer pedestrian and cycle routes, and better open spaces.30

The success of Groundwork, which has grownfrom one local organisation in 1981 to a networkof over 40 Trusts with a national turnover of £42million in 1998, has been achieved in some of themost difficult circumstances. Harsh and blightedenvironments have been refurbished, landscapedand given a new life, but this has been achieved byworking closely in partnership with thecommunities involved.

15

“Environmentalism is emerging as a significantnew source of beliefs and actions about the need fornew kinds of citizenship.”

The many Groundwork Trusts have pioneerednew forms of public consultation with residentsand tenants, developing locally specific ways ofmoving forward together in the renewal andimprovement of neighbourhoods and estateenvironments. This concern with procedure andconsultation takes Groundwork, and otherenvironmental projects, directly into the territoryof democratic renewal. The excellent handbookproduced by Hackney Groundwork, ChangingEstates,31 is a model guide tocanvassing local opinion, holdingmeetings and creating otheropportunities for people toexpress their opinions, and inmany other ways forming newlocal networks for participation,debate and consensus-seeking.Many local authorities - and national politicalparties - could learn a great deal from it.

But this kind of work is also about the creationof jobs - meaningful jobs which provide paid workwhilst directly improving the quality of life in thelocal community. Local employment schemes basedon restoring the local public fabric - housing,streets, parks - provide work as well as increasinglocal social cohesion. The greater labourproductivity of the weightless economy, coupledwith the low esteem with which economists regardpublic spending, has taken away many jobs thatpeople once did which provided employmentwhilst fulfilling a valuable social function in thecommunity: railway station staff, bus conductors,housing caretakers, street-cleaners, park-keepers,school catering staff. There may have been short-

term financial gains in squeezing these jobs out ofthe system, but there were also enormous socialand environmental losses further down the line.Environmentalism’s concern with resourceproductivity, rather than labour productivity, hasreal job-creating potential once again in theseneighbourhood based environmental services.

The potential for job creation throughenvironmental regeneration, particularly new forms

of energy and resourceefficiency, recycling, wastemanagement, and developinggreener local economies, is apoint which has been madewith increasing resonance by theeconomist Robin Murray. Heand colleagues estimate that “an

intensive programme of recycling in the UK couldcreate between 40,000 and 55,000 new jobs,taking into account those that would be lost in theprocess.”32

These are jobs which often provide a multipledividend. They provide work directly in thecommunities which adopt extensive recyclingprogrammes; many adopt the form of self-managed community enterprises; they areenvironmentally friendly; and they can helpstrengthen the social networks of the street andneighbourhood as well. A quadruple dividend infact. Recycling actively depends on the involvementof all householders in the primary stages of theprocess, and can set the ground rules for whatMurray calls a ‘productive democracy’, in which

16

“Environmental organisations themselves need to learn from the experience and skills of the community development sector.”

people take greater responsibility for their role inprotecting the community’s environment.

These kinds of schemes also create a positiveclimate for change, a sense of actively makingthings better, which a more consumerist ‘culture ofcomplaint’ has attenuated. Therenewal of democracy is likely tobe strongly dependent on capturingthe public’s imagination and activesupport for the environmentalagenda, for in the words of IanChristie, “no other source of civicenergy is plausible for the task.”33

In turn, though, environmentalorganisations themselves need tolearn from the experience and skillsof the community development sector. A newreport from the Community DevelopmentFoundation on the links between tackling povertyand environmental action makes this pointexplicitly. It provides a number of case studieswhich demonstrate the skills and patiencesometimes needed to develop such projects, whichare much more likely to succeed if a ‘learningprocess’ approach is adopted. This is again a link tothe educational and developmental roles whichlocal environmental initiatives need to harness.34

Finally, one returns to the growing connectionbetween environmentalism and citizenship, and thedebate about rights and responsibilities in aculturally diverse, politically volatile culture. Newpolitical discourses struggle to respect widedifferences of lifestyle, culture, religion andpolitical views, while at the same time urging that

there are public procedures, valuesand common goods which need tobe respected, if the social fabric isnot to be rendered into pieces. It isprecisely here that the vocabulariesand practices of environmentalismand sustainability come into theirown, even producing what AndrewDobson, among others, has termed‘Environmental Citizenship’.

Environmental citizenship does not onlyconsist in agitating for better recycling facilities, but in recyclingat home. Old-style citizenship was about the square and the townhall, the public face of production and consumption.Environmental citizenship emphasises the links between the publicand the private and recognises that every ‘private’ environmentalaction has a public environmental consequence.35

Although we live in an increasingly diverse andcomplex society, environmentalism could provide acommon set of core activities and aspirations tohelp tie individuals and communities together.

17

“Although we live in an increasingly diverse and complex society, environmentalism could provide a common set of core activities and aspirations to help tie individuals and communities together.”

18taking action

In outlining the role that environmentalpolicies and initiatives can play in addressing socialissues, as well as the role environmental action canplay in developing new forms of citizenship anddemocracy, this pamphlet provides a starting pointfor a wider political debate. What follows is a set ofprinciples that show how this thinking can beapplied in practice. Examples are provided ofschemes which successfully straddle social andenvironmental policies, to promote quality of lifein its widest sense.

Walkability is a key principle of neighbourhood renewal.

For people to feel a strong sense of localownership of space, and pride in theirneighbourhood, it has to be physically andpsychologically under control. This means that ithas to be safely walkable. The report A Safer Journey toSchool details how encouraging children to walk toschool through wardened schemes cuts down onlocal car traffic and emissions, gets parents workingtogether to provide safe escorts, and gives childrena healthier start to the day, as well as a greaterawareness of their local neighbourhood.36 GreenTransport Plans (and School Travel Plans) do thistoo. Walking is both the most sociable and the mostenvironmentally beneficial way of reclaiming thelocal neighbourhood. Likewise, there is little point

in investing in local environmental improvementschemes, and the provision of new facilities andamenities, if the streets used to access them are stillfelt to be dangerous andunsafe. An accessible andenjoyable neighbourhoodis only as strong as itsweakest links - the streetsconnecting it. Transportand regeneration policieswhich fail to give fullrecognition to the basic importance of walking aresimply not sustainable. Put ‘pedestrian planning’ atthe heart of transport policy.

Meet local needs locally.

Local services should wherever possible beprovided by local people and local businesses.Maintenance work, care-taking, street-cleaning,park-keeping, and other important service jobs arelikely to be done to a higher quality, and with agreater degree of local knowledge andwatchfulness, if they are done by local people. Ithelps cut down on transport costs too. Ifneighbourhood renewal is to be more than top-down managerialism, it has to give clear thoughtto how the delivery mechanisms and agencies forlocal services can be provided locally, and how they

“Walking is both the most sociable and the most environmentally beneficial way of reclaiming the local neighbourhood.”

strengthen the local economy and exchange ofgoods and services. Community transport schemesand community recycling schemes have both beensuccessful in providing services, jobs and localnetworks of knowledge and sociability. Dial-A-Ridedrivers, for example, nearly always know the namesof their elderly passengers, exactly where they needto be collected and dropped off, and whatassistance they need to do so safely.

Maintenance and management are key factors for social andenvironmental sustainability.

Britain’s towns and cities are full of districts,housing estates, streets and parks which are failingprincipally through lack of adequate maintenance.New capital spending programmes shoulddemonstrate a sustainable maintenance programmeand identify the funding for this. If there is to begreater local management and maintenance of theeveryday environment, then thought must be givento developing neighbourhood management skillsand capacities. A new generation of caretakers,park-keepers, concierges and civic wardens willneed greater inter-personal and conciliation skills,as well as practical abilities. As local democracy isrenewed through environmental action, conflictinginterests will need to be addressed and negotiatedmore locally and directly.

Maximise use of facilities and resources.

All buildings cost money and resources to heatand maintain, irrespective of whether they arebeing used or not. Greater use should be made ofschool buildings, public libraries and otherfacilities in order to maximise use and value from

their capital and revenue costs. Multiple use alsooffers opportunities for strengthening communitynetworks, even where allegedly incompatible usesbecome the focus for debate and negotiation.Schools and community facilities which rely onhigh fences, CCTV cameras and other securitysystems for protection are likely to mean that socialand environmental sustainability is not even on theagenda.

Only support projects which are based on learning processes andself-renewability.

Too many regeneration projects are stilldeveloped by politicians and professionals, whomay move on to greener pastures once the initialspending is complete, or the problems start toshow. Environmentalismhas always stressed theself-correcting, self-renewing aspects ofecological processes, andthe crucial importance ofthe learning processeswhich environmental projects support and foster.Regeneration projects should always demonstratethe learning opportunities inherent in them, theirlong-term revenue and management implications,and point to clear hand-over processes for theprofessionals involved. In many places elected localauthorities and their staff still fulfil many of theselong-term criteria well, but elsewhere, localauthorities and other public agencies have seriouslyimpeded the growth of newer forms of localdecision-making and responsibility.

19

“Regeneration projects should always demonstrate the learning opportunities inherent in them.”

Localise and democratise the evaluation process.

Too many public sector professionals claim thatmore and more time is spent on responding totop-down auditing processes: quotas achieved,performance indicators scored, units processed -even though some performance indicators produce‘perverse effects’ which run counter to the originalintentions. Likewise, bland market research intosatisfaction rates for local services lack insight orcredibility. New ways of evaluating the success oflocal provision should be developed, based ongreater community involvement in establishingbenchmarks and achievements. Such forms ofauditing should be linked to new communityplanning processes.

Explore new forms of ownership and governance.

One of the most significant aspects of theCountryside Agency’s ‘Millennium Greens’ projectis that it requires a transfer of land assets intocommunity trusts. The transfer of assets is always astrong signal of seriousness about ‘ownership’ andresponsibility. Many environmental reclamationprojects demonstrated an early alertness to issues ofownership and management. Much ofGroundwork’s work has been about creating localbodies to undertake local reclamation projects,again including establishing new local ‘commons’.City farms, community gardens, projects such as‘Growing Communities’ which turns derelict landinto sites for growing organic produce, oftenachieve a social objective and an environmentalobjective at the same time. The Development TrustsAssociation provides a good example of howcommunities create new democratic forms of

ownership and management to achieve social andenvironmental goals.

Use technology and intelligence to increase resource-productivityand labour intensity.

New technology should not be used to replacehuman skills and jobs, but to enhance community.Vending machines and ticket machines in unstaffedrailway stations and local amenities displace humancontact, security and sociability. Local cabletelevision and local websites have both been usedsuccessfully to keep people informed of localissues, inviting people to meetings which are alsobroadcast live. Realtime informationsystems at bus stopsand railway stationsreassure people thatindeed their bus ortrain is coming. Emailnetworks can provide up to date information aboutjob opportunities, local housing lettings and sales,volunteering opportunities, car-sharing schemesand local meetings or gatherings. They can alsoprovide the crucial feedback mechanisms thatsensitive policy development and actionprogrammes need.

Use energy-efficiency programmes, and similar schemes such aslocal recycling initiatives, to create jobs and get a better deal forpoorer people.

The Glasgow WISE scheme, creating a doubledividend of cheaper fuel bills for people whosehouses were insulated, as well as providing jobs forunemployed people locally to undertake the survey

20

“Local cable television and websites have both been used successfully to keep people informed of local issues.”

and insulating work, is a clear example of howsocial and environmental objectives can beachieved.37 The government’s new £260 millionHome Energy Efficiency Scheme, designed toprovide more than a quarter of a million over-60shouseholds with advice and grants to improveinsulating and reduce fuel bills, is a start.

Ensure that the connections between local and national, micro andmacro systems, are clear and working.

Neighbourhoods themselves are part of widerconnections, although the neighbourhood isusually the first place in which these connectionsare experienced directly. Some politicians arerightly concerned that it would be counter-productive to launch enthusiastically intocommunity recycling schemes, if the long termoutcomes and possibilities of success are not fullyexplored. Why, they ask, sort newspapers, glass andorganics on the doorstep if they may all end uptumbled together again in a landfill site because thecollecting agency was unable to find a market forthem? The success of local environmental schemes

will be inter-related with developments elsewhere,and new political forms will need to be developedto strengthen the web of local initiatives and makethem part of a wider, connecting whole.

Conclusions

The environmentalist’s concern for processes asmuch as products, which is also the concern ofthose engaged in social policy, needs to ensure thatthe new forms of community-building it proposesare robust and efficient. That said, there have beenmore successes in community development inrecent years through environmentally-basedprojects than there have been through large scalecapital spending programmes or schemes whichfavour professional and managerial solutions. For inthe end, councils and governments change hands,and professionals move on. But most people carryon living where they do, and the long termsustainability of social and environmentalregeneration depends on communities learning tomanage change - in all its complexity - forthemselves.

21

22“It’s just about getting on with life. People want to see real action: not thecomplicated language of environmentalism, but practical steps to make theircommunities a safer, cleaner and better place to live.”

Response by Hazel Blears MP

In Our Backyard highlights the need for acompletely new approach to environmentalpolitics, and my personal experience since thegeneral election shows how important this will bein tackling social exclusion.

‘Making it better’ - that’s the headline promiseof our project in one of Salford’s most deprivedinner city neighbourhoods. Maybe that’s becausethings could hardly get worse. Over the last 10years local people have watched in horror whilsttheir community has almost dissolved aroundthem. Crime, vandalism and anti-social behaviourhave escalated out of control. Many of the smallterraced properties are boarded up,derelict or have been torched androbbed of anything valuable inside.Children as young as five years oldroam the street with teenagers,often on the fringes and sometimesat the centre of criminal activity.

Rising unemployment in theearly nineties, the breakdown offamily life and more specifically an invasion ofirresponsible tenants, encouraged by privatelandlords simply seeking to make a quick profit,have devastated this once proud and respectableneighbourhood.

Many of the programmes enacted by successiveGovernments to tackle ‘inner city problems’concentrated almost exclusively on bricks andmortar solutions. Millions of pounds were spent on‘environmental measures’ like tree planting,beautiful railings, traffic calming measures,renewing pavements and undertaking external andinternal repairs to rows of terraced houses.

What was crucially lacking in those earlyregeneration projects was any attempt to addressthe underlying, creeping paralysis caused byunemployment, poverty and the breakdown offamily life.

This Labour Government hasfinally recognised that forregeneration to be sustainable wemust build the confidence of localpeople so that they are able to takecontrol of their own lives andensure that improvements continuewhen the professionals and theCouncil withdraw.

As Ken Worpole emphasises, poorerneighbourhoods are often seen to be communitiesof least resistance. Local people not only face the

“Things could hardly get worse. Over the last 10 years local people have watched in horror whilst their community has almost dissolved around them.”

problems of low incomes but also have to suffermany activities that no one else will tolerate.

If there is an incinerator to be built, a toxicwaste plant to be operated, extra traffic to beaccommodated or even drugs and alcoholrehabilitation units, guess where they are most

likely to be built. Not in theaffluent suburbs, where thearticulate middle classwould soon establish anaction group and win theday, but in those

neighbourhoods where local people are not wellorganised, have little access to resources, and lackadvocates for their cause.

Involving local people in planning isfundamental to success. We have used newtechnology in our regeneration area, includingvirtual reality models, which allow people toexperience design schemes for housing, parks,roads and so on, and to change their view of theworld at the touch of a button. The creation of 3Dmodels, and ‘planning for real’ exercises withschools and young people, have been tremendouslysuccessful, and will help shape the future of theirneighbourhood.

The pamphlet highlights the need to integratelearning with regeneration. This is key to long termsuccess. All too often, we expect local people, oftenon low incomes with a myriad of otherresponsibilities, to take on complex tasks of publicconsultation and participation. We want them tohelp plan multi-million pound projects, monitor

expenditure and be accountable to their friendsand neighbours, without training and withoutpractical help. We must establish proper systems ofsupport for volunteers, including travel expenses,childcare, help with elderly relatives, and propertraining. Local people should work alongsideexisting regeneration staff in the form ofapprenticeships, so that they are in a position tomanage the projects themselves and sustainimprovements over the longer term.

New forms of ownership and governance arethe foundations of long term change. We aresetting up a community housing company wherelocal people will decide on letting policies, repairs,maintenance and improvements to their homes. Weare also establishing a community-based financialinstitution, to offer loans where banks andbuilding societies have withdrawn, which willfacilitate the establishment and growth of vibrantcommunity businesses to provide jobs andopportunities for local people.

We are also exploring the idea of a communitydevelopment trust, so that when the regenerationproject has come andgone there aremechanisms within theneighbourhood to drawin further investment tocontinue to makeimprovements in yearsto come.

Poor environments lead to cynicism anddisaffection with the political process. The

23

“The regeneration of communities depends on the shared conviction that we all have a right to live in a decent community.”

“Poor environments lead to cynicism and disaffection with the political process.”

reorganisation of local government into cabinetstructures and community based committees may,if we are not careful, marginalise political partieseven further. Unless party organisation is seen to bein touch with the new structures at neighbourhoodlevel, their contribution will become ever moreirrelevant. Labour in the 21st century must befirmly based in the community, seen as a relevantvehicle for change and be the authentic voice oflocal people.

The introduction of local policy forums,question and answer sessions for local councillors,new candidates for local Government, and thewider involvement of communities in selfmanagement and self governance can all help torenew our democratic politics. Without this kind ofradical action, party politics will becomeincreasingly irrelevant to the concerns of localpeople, and will not mobilise support at local ornational level.

The regeneration of communities depends onthe shared conviction that we all have a right tolive in a decent environment wherever we are,countryside or city, suburb or town. Equally, we allhave responsibilities towards one another, to pickup our litter, to control our dogs, and children, toplay a part in what goes on in our neighbourhoodand to look out for one another and keep ourcommunities safe.

It sounds idyllic, but actually it’s just aboutgetting on with life. People want to see real action:not the complicated language of environmentalism,but practical steps to make their communities andthe country as a whole a safer, cleaner and betterplace to live.

By accepting many of the approaches outlinedin this pamphlet, Labour, too, can ensure that it hasa long and sustainable future.

Hazel Blears is Labour MP for Salford.

24

25 “People in degraded environments need power and funding so that they can have apivotal role in planning and implementing improvement schemes.”

Response by Don Foster MP

Liberal Democrats everywhere should give awarm welcome to In Our Backyard. It highlights thecrucial link between our environment and oursense of social well-being.

I asked Charles Kennedy to add ‘social justice’to my DETR brief, partly because I believe we canhelp end social exclusion through communityaction on the environment. In Our Backyard is inspirit with our fundamental belief that politicsworks best when local people have true ownershipof projects through their own involvement rightfrom the beginning.

The ghettos of the poor in our country areoften unhealthy places, with housing poorlyinsulated and costly to heat, without good publictransport, and with their children at greater riskfrom road deaths and pollution. Their ‘sink’ schoolsfind it hard to attract good teachers. Small corner-street shops don’t have the bargains offered bydistant supermarkets. Loans come from loan sharksat extortionate interest. Banks are long gone. Thosewho live in such places lack the skills and resourcesto regenerate them.

The Labour government deserves credit for itsgood intentions in setting up regeneration projects,

but hundreds of overlapping schemes weigheddown with bureaucracy are leading to muddle andchaos.

People in degraded environments need powerand funding so that they can have a pivotal role inplanning and implementing improvement schemes.This must mean much more than just consultingthem about a variety of options dictated ‘from thetop’.

Decentralised decision-making, much closer tocommunities, is a core Liberal Democrat principle,which is why the local authorities we control, suchas Eastleigh, were early pioneers of the areacommittee system. We want to see an enhancedrole for parish councils where they are supportedby their local communities in taking on extendedpowers. We would develop local communitycouncils within all urban areas, too.

The same principle can be seen on a granderscale in our long-standing commitment to regionalgovernment. We want powers stripped away fromWhitehall and Westminster, from their ‘out-stations’ the Regional Development Agencies, andfrom other unelected quangos, and given todemocratically-elected regional governments.

Communal decision-making can make adifference. Two years ago I saw infant schools inthe Canton of Zurich in Switzerland, where youngchildren could walk home safely and unattendedby adults because the local community had agreed

that no-one woulddrive cars in the streetsaround the school at‘home time’ andbecause adults watchedout for the children,both on the pavementsand from the windowsof their homes.

I notice that Ken Worpole makes no mention ofLocal Agenda 21, which came out of the Rio EarthSummit in 1992 and recognised theinterdependence of sustainable development andlocal community action, producing the slogan‘think global, act local’. This was an attempt to dojust what the pamphlet suggests.

In some areas Local Agenda 21 has been thefocus for some innovative community projects, butit has not been as successful as many hoped. We’velacked leadership and sense of purpose fromcentral government. It is vital that communities useshared information about successful initiatives andbest practice, through intelligent use ofinformation technology. Central government has towork with local communities on environmentalissues, not just pass the buck to them.

However, we can celebrate Liberal Democratsuccesses with such local initiatives. The London

Borough of Sutton, Liberal Democrat-controlled formany years, has developed a series of projectsinvolving the community on environmental issues.

Two particularly impressed me. ThePeabody/BioRegional Beddington Zero EnergyDevelopment is probably Europe’s largest eco-village development. It is a zero-energy housingproject where householders will generate theirown power from waste and other sustainablesources. Local people are developing the project,with the Council as facilitator. Additionally, there isto be a community car pool avoiding the need foreach household to purchase their own vehicle.

The Beanstalk project helps groups of childrento grow their own organic food on otherwiseunused allotment sites in Sutton. 16 groups tookpart in 1999. Children learn from experiencedlocal gardeners what makes good food, and how tocare for theirenvironment.Creativity cancome to be muchmore satisfyingthan vandalism;ownership isempowering. Even working on my own gardenover the summer has reminded me of thesatisfaction you get through regeneratingpreviously derelict land.

If our schools could be turned into true‘community schools’, we could put a valuable andpowerful resource into the hands of local people.In addition to ‘Beanstalk’-style projects, children

26

“Local Agenda 21 has been the focus for some innovative community projects, but it has not been as successful as many hoped.”

“Central government has to work with local communities on environmental issues, not just pass the buck to them.”

could use home economics rooms to learn how tocook the food they’d grown. Library, drama, musicand sports hall facilities could all become acommunity resource. Education authorities needthe courage to bring community groups into thelocal management of schools alongside governorsand teachers, so that schools canbe open in the evenings, atweekends and in school holidays.

There is everything to be saidfor developing school sites intoflagships of ‘green’ projects. Howmany schools have solar heating panels or high-grade insulation? Why can’t they have on-siteprocessing of waste and composting? Courses foradult learners could give them the skills to renewtheir own environment. Community enterprisescreating jobs and profits could work out of schoolsites.

Other community facilities have this potentialtoo. There are possible multiple uses for libraries,community halls, youth clubs, day centres and postoffices.

People should not be campaigning for betterlocal services; they should be running them.

Liberal Democrats believe that by ‘trusting thepeople’ community by community, we cangenerate ideas and jobs, regenerate local

economies, reduce social exclusionand enhance the environment.

In Our Backyard sings from thesame hymn-sheet in highlightingthe difference that local action can

make to a community’s environment, but overlooksthe importance of marrying local activism to astrong central philosophy about sustainabledevelopment. Without political leadership fromnational government on the big environmentalissues, the importance of community action onlocal ones will not be recognised.

Don Foster is Liberal Democrat MP for Bath. He is theparty’s spokesperson for environment, transport, regions and socialjustice.

27

“People should not be campaigning for better local services; they should be running them.”

28“The double benefit of greater community involvement and an improved locality iskey to sustaining a higher quality of life.”

Response by Damian Green MP

Environmentalists engage in fundamentalthinking, so let me start with a fundamentalquestion. Do enough people care enough about‘the environment’ to make it a salient politicalissue? It may seem a brutal question, but those ofus who regard environmental problems as asignificant and serious public policy challengeshould be able to address it confidently. KenWorpole makes the point that many people maynot feel that the great international issues whichdominate the environmentalists’agenda matter to them, but theystill care passionately about theirlocality-and see that as the keyenvironmental issue that politicsshould be tackling.

On this basis, every politician should beconcerned about the environment, even if the pollsshow that only around 20 per cent of votersconsider it an important issue (a number which initself is perfectly respectable). Environmentalpolitics must be real life everyday politics, as wellas long-term global politics. This is what we havebeen putting into place with our Conservative‘Blue-Green Agenda’, setting out how our concernfor the environment springs from widerConservative principles. Many of these arise in thecourse of Ken Worpole’s pamphlet: the need for

individual responsibility, the likelihood that localloyalties can play a part both in social andenvironmental improvements, and the attraction ofdiversity of ownership.

The Blue-Green Agenda starts from theunderstanding that those of a conservative cast ofmind will wish to act as stewards, preserving andenhancing the natural world and the builtenvironment for future generations, just as we do

for our institutions. We wish topromote sustainable developmentthrough encouraging private andvoluntary effort, and creatingsensible regulation that harnessesthe power of the market. We want

to use tax cuts as an incentive to ‘greener’behaviour, and give more environmental decisionsto local communities. We are promoting opendebate in a free society, to allow proper discussionof difficult scientific and technological problems.Lastly, we think that the UK should take a lead inurging practical solutions to internationalproblems.

Some of the policies we have already unveiledput these principles into practice, in ways that meetthe challenges set out by Ken Worpole. Ourdocument on waste policy, A Cleaner Greener Britain,

“Do enough people care enough about ‘the environment’ to make it a salient political issue?”

sets much greater store on recycling than theGovernment’s own waste strategy, and urges amuch better focussing of the resources deployedthrough the Landfill Tax Credit scheme to promotedoorstep recycling. We want to see every localauthority offering a separate doorstep collection ofrecyclables. In this way we would engageindividuals to change their daily routine in a smallbut significant way.

We have also been campaigning for tighterplanning controls on mobile phone masts,

especially near schoolsand hospitals. This is anissue that is partlyabout the environment,and partly aboutpotential healthhazards. What it showsis how a general issuecan become a thousand

vital local issues, bringing people to the realisationthat their local concerns have a wider context.

We have advocated tax incentives for motoriststo switch to cleaner fuels. The model here is thetremendous success in the 1980s of the tax-drivenswitch to lead-free petrol. Transport is clearly adifficult area for environmentalists who reject thenotion that greener politics mean reducingpersonal freedom. What we need to do isdisentangle the various traffic problems we faceand recognise that the emissions problem iscapable of technological resolution over time. Whatpublic policy can do is to speed up the move tocleaner fuels, and therefore to that long-term

solution. If the buyers are there, the market toservice them will develop quickly.

Similarly, if we wish to use environmentalpolicy to encourage people to become moreinvolved in community affairs, we must be awareof the strong feelings generated by planningmatters. Preserving green spaces is emphatically notjust a concern of the suburban and rural middleclasses. Those who live in the inner cities also valuethe green space they have, and do not want iteither built on or rendered unusable. This is whywe have advocated turning the planning system onits head, and allowing local communities a muchgreater say. At the moment we have a top-downmodel where the Secretary of State produces aglobal number of new houses, and then divides itout around the regions and counties like amediaeval monarch. The result is the potentialdisappearance of green fields in popular regions,combined with a flight from the inner cities of fartoo many of the economically active, responding tothe Government’s signal to go where the newhouses are.Giving realstrategicplanningpower tolocalcouncilswill mean that voters have a say about whatmatters, doing far more to encourage a higher turnout at elections than changing the voting day ormoving the polling stations.

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“A general issue can become a thousand vital local issues, bringing people to the realisation that their local concerns have a wider context.”

“Centralising political decision-making means that good projects do not take root, and good people do not remain involved.

Many of Groundwork’s projects illustrate thewell of goodwill that can be tapped on theenvironment in apparently unpromising places. Thedouble benefit of greater community involvementand an improved locality is key to sustaining ahigher quality of life. Ken Worpole has kind wordsfor the Community Development Foundation(CDF), and I should declare an interest as a Trusteeof this effective charity. What the CDF has learnedis that patience and consistency are necessary forimprovements to be maintained over time. Suchconsistency can only come from the bottom up.Centralising political decision-making means thatgood projects do not take root, and good peopledo not remain involved.

We will be dealing with a number of otherpolicy issues in the months ahead, from the globalchallenge of climate change to the protection ofour precious natural heritage. We do this becausethese issues are important in themselves, andbecause they provide a route into communityinvolvement for so many who might otherwiseignore the political process. Since we believe thatresponsible individuals are the bedrock of a healthysociety, and that publicly involved citizens are thebest protection against an over-mighty state, we seeonly good coming from a greater spread ofenvironmental awareness and activity.

Damian Green is the Conservative environment spokesman.He is the MP for Ashford.

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31 Notes1 Andrew Marr, ‘The Ghost in the Mirror’, Resurgence No 201, July/August 2000.2 Michael Jacobs, Environmental Modernisation: The new Labour agenda, Fabian Society, October 1999.3 The Rt Hon William Hague MP, ‘A blue-green approach to the environment’, speech given to Green Alliance on 9 November 1999.4 Inside Track, Green Alliance, Spring 2000.5 Tidy Britain Group, Attitude and Awareness Study of Litter and Other Environmental Issues, June 1998.6 Roger Burrows and David Rhodes, Unpopular Places? Area disadvantage and the geography of misery in England, the Policy Press in association with

the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1998.7 Social Exclusion Unit, Bringing Britain together: a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal , the Stationery Office, 1998.8 Denis MacShane, ‘Forget the NHS: clear up the litter’, New Statesman, 22 May 2000.9 Ben Plowden, ‘Street wise’, The Guardian, 17 May 2000.10 Ben Plowden, ‘Don’t let the train take the strain’, New Statesman, 24 July 2000.11 Ray Forrest and Ade Kearns, Joined Up Places? Social cohesion and neighbourhood regeneration, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1999. 12 DETR,Towards a Language of Sustainable Development, May 2000.13 Towards an Urban Renaissance, report of the Urban Task Force chaired by Lord Rogers, DETR, 1999.14 Ray Forrest and Ade Kearns, op.cit. See especially Chapter 2, ‘Women in the Community’.15 Roger Burrows and David Rhodes, op.cit.16 Social Exclusion Unit, Bringing Britain together: a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal , the Stationery Office, 1998.17 Further details of the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey of Young People can be found at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health.18 Many of these points are made in Voisey & Hewett, Reconciling social and environmental concerns, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1999.19 Diane Warburton, personal communication, July 2000.20 Forrest & Kearns, op.cit. p35.21 Social Exclusion Unit, Bringing Britain together: a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal , the Stationery Office, 1998. See page 44 for the

Broadwater Farm case study.22 Brian Robson et al, Assessing the Impact of Urban Policy, Department of Environment Inner Cities Research Programme, the Stationery

Office, 1994.23 Cited in Ken Worpole & Liz Greenhalgh, The Richness of Cities: Final Report, Comedia & Demos, 1999, p17.24 The Roots of Democratic Exclusion, report by Charter 88, published on website www.charter88.org.uk.25 Ian Christie, ‘Sustainability and modernisation: what are the links?’ EGVolume 6, no 4, April 2000, p4.26 Social Exclusion Unit, op.cit.27 ‘Local Agenda 21 - integration, independence or extinction?’ EG Vol 6, no 6, June 2000.28 Towards an Urban Renaissance, report of the Urban Task Force chaired by Lord Rogers, DETR, 1999. 29 Michael Gwilliam, Caroline Bourne, Corinne Swain and Anna Pratt, Sustainable renewal of suburban areas, Joseph Rowntree Foundation

with the Civic Trust, London, 1998.30 Ian Christie & Ken Worpole, Modernisation & Democratisation on Solid Ground, a Groundwork Discussion Paper, June 2000.31 Maisie Rowe, with Andy Wales, Changing Estates: A facilitator’s guide to making community environment projects work, Groundwork Hackney, 1999.32 Robin Murray, Creating Wealth from Waste, Demos, 1999, p48.33 Ian Christie, cited in Diane Warburton, Community & Sustainable Development, Earthscan, 1998, p31.34 Chris Church, Adam Cade & Adrienne Grant, An environment for everyone: social exclusion, poverty and environmental action, Community

Development Foundation, 1998.35 Andrew Dobson, ‘Environmental citizenship’, Town and Country Planning, January 2000.36 A Safer Journey to School, Transport 2000 Trust & DfEE, 1999.37 For more information about Glasgow WISE, see Melissa Benn, ‘Livelihood: Work in the new economy’, in Ken Warpole, ed. The

Richness of Cities, Comedia, Demos, 1998.

Printed on paper made from 100% re-cycled post consumer waste with soya based inks.

In Our Backyard by Ken Worpole

In the public mind, ‘the environment’ is about global threats: deforestation,endangered species and climate change. Through its high-profile globalcampaigning, the green movement has done much to create this impression.Yet the environment is about everyday things, too. It is about the parks whereour children play, the air they breathe and the food they eat. The environmentis literally in our backyard.

A focus on the everyday environment could reap dividends, both forenvironmentalists and for those concerned with combating social exclusion.Local energy efficiency schemes employ local people, reduce fuel bills andreduce climate change. Encouraging people to walk and cycle, through bettertransport planning, cuts car use and creates a sense of community. Perhapsmost importantly, Worpole argues that a focus on the local environmentcould restore interest in the political process, by linking people, places andpoliticians through the shared aim of a better place to live.

The pamphlet concludes with responses from three politicians, discussing thechallenges that In Our Backyard sets out, and putting them into the contextof each political tradition.

ISBN 09531060 2 1 £10.00