Mapping lockdown’s impact on community planning groups

How has Covid-19 and the associated lockdown measures impacted groups and communities involved in campaigns to promote more just planning in London? As a first step towards the production of a Community-Led Recovery Plan, Just Space and The Bartlett’s Development Planning Unit, produced an audio map collating reflections on this question from a variety of London-based community groups and campaigns.

Read collectively, the stories captured underscore the critical importance of placing the knowledge(s) and experience of London’s diverse communities at the heart of post-pandemic recovery planning in London. In particular, the groups’ propositional reflections about what needs to change for London to become a more just city, offer a clear and timely steer for decision makers seeking (re)election in upcoming local elections.

Bringing together selected audio clips with brief organisational profiles, the map is designed as a living resource, with the potential for the ideas and reflections of further London-based groups to be added overtime.

Calthorpe Community Gardens

Above: Calthorpe Community Gardens, Grays Inn Road, London. The Garden became a charity and a company limited by guarantee in 1984. Photo by Richard Stonehouse.

The Calthorpe Community Garden is a community asset located near Kings Cross station. Established in 1984, the garden serves a diverse inner-London community offering a range of activities aimed to improve the physical and emotional well-being of those who live, work or study in the neighbourhood. As well as being a publicly accessible garden, its core services are:

1. A supported horticultural training programme for people with special educational needs or mental health issues.
2. A sustainable food growing programme that links production to a vegetarian cafe and waste recycling facility.
3. A programme of supervised activities for children and their families.
4. A sports development scheme for young people.
5. A programme of community classes and activities.

With many of their activities disrupted by Covid-19 related restrictions, 2020/21 has seen the Calthorpe Community Garden reorientate several of its activities towards supporting a community-centred response to the pandemic. For example, the Calthorpe Garden Café was transformed into a community food bank distribution point with fresh produce from the gardens supplementing donations from local residents and businesses. In the words of Mila Campoy, Café Manager, Calthorpe “is even more important now than it was before.”

Authors

• DR CLAIRE MCANDREW, Senior Research Associate, The Bartlett School of Architecture, and Co-founder & Chief Community Officer, Automated Architecture Ltd.
• MOLLIE CLAYPOOL, Associate Professor, The Bartlett School of Architecture, and Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Automated Architecture Ltd.
• GILES RETSIN, Associate Professor, The Bartlett School of Architecture, and Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Automated Architecture Ltd.