Author Archives: Hilary
A New Life In Australia: Dream Or Reality?
Young professionals have always wanted spread their wings. But why are some workers outside London more willing to up roots to Australia, than they are even to try life in their own U.K. metropolis – or, come to that, in Cornwall if they want surfing and sun or in the Higlands if they want space? The distant unknown, it seems, is a more attractive dream for the future than the anything closer to home.
Strange how people often feel ‘safer’ opting for the completely unknown, rather than for the semi-familiar. Two or three times this week I’ve been chatting to young public sector professionals and skilled trades people around my patch (northern England) who’ve announced they fancy a new life in Australia.
When quizzed a bit more, the reasons for this option usually run as
1. it’s warmer and sunnier (indisputable, of course…. but it can be pretty humid too);
2. there are more ‘opportunities’ there (Yes, but that could be because loads of young Australian professionals are over here); and
3. it’s ‘boring’ here in the U.K. (What, all of it?)
Now, far be it from me to talk anyone out of an adventure – I went to Arizona on an American Field Service International Scholarship, for a full year and all on my own, at the ripe old age of seventeen – but I’m still a bit puzzled.
Why not London?
If I further enquire (because I’m curious, not because I want to dissuade) why these young people don’t want to try (say) London, I’m usually told it’s because Londoners are unfriendly and it’s a horrible, expensive, confusing place which you can’t get out of.
Well, some of my best friends live in London, I quite often work there, and I graduated from a London university. On the whole, I enjoy being there. It is a collection of some of the most historic ‘villages’ in the world, it has culture, it has cutting edge knowledge, it has huge parks…
But others’ hostile view of London does raise some interesting issues, such as: how do folk ‘know’ that a land they have never even visited isn’t also confusing, unfriendly or expensive? How can they be so confident that it’s a better place to be?
Or Cornwall or the Highlands?
Are these adventurers actually seeking a ‘new’ life when they leave the U.K., or, in fact, just a revamped version of the ‘previous’ one, with more excitement, freedom, challenges or whatever? And is this a realistic expectation in either event? Most people probably plan to take their current skills with them in their news lives, so they are in reality just trading locations (no harm in that).
If people want work and sunshine / space, why not Cornwall or the Highlands? Both are currently Objective One areas of the U.K., with plenty of incentives for skilled and entrepreneurial people, and both have space enough for everyone. They offer beaches, inexpensive housing, a more relaxed life-style; and they leave the option of experimentation without a huge commitment. In fact, on reflection, I’d probably suggest they be explored as ‘practice runs’ before taking the drastic step of crossing the equator for a permanent change of home.
It’s all in the marketing
These ideas of London and Oz are probably both wide of the mark. People are people everywhere, and, even allowing for deep cultural differences, how you find them usually depends far more on your own personal approach than on any other factor.
Which brings us to marketing and image…. Australia is openly eager to draw some of our brightest and best to its shores; and no problem there – we do the same to them, and, perhaps sometimes less fairly, to other countries too. But whilst London seems to emphasise the requirements of the knowledge economy, Australia also overtly seeks to draw those with technical and applied skills.
London as a city rarely does anything about actively attracting young public sector professionals from other parts of the U.K. Yes, individual organisations do this, but not London as a city in
its own right. It doesn’t really need to; but perhaps young people need it?
Conversely, the UK ‘regions’ all set themselves up in opposition to the metropolis. The very brightest of all already go to London in their droves (London has a far higher concentration of very highly qualified people than any other part of the U.K.); but little is done directly to encourage exchange and flow between different U.K. regions. And to us in the ‘regions’ London often looks like the Opposition.
Shared experience has value
It would be a very positive move if we encouraged young professionals to know their counterparts elsewhere in the U.K. Perhaps the problem here is that often only as they become more senior are they expected to attend conferences outside their own regional ‘comfort zone’, meeting other workers in more distant locations and learning how different people see the world. Indeed, for many that never happens, or else it’s too late by then for them to develop a fresh perspective.
Until a couple of decades ago many undergraduates chose to study as far away from home as possible; but that was at a time when a far smaller percentage of our young people went on the higher education. The sheer numbers of students these days makes this option impossible to finance by state grants; there’s been a relocation of post-school study to home ground as a trade-off for more people (of all ages) doing it.
So when are young people today getting their experience away from home territory? How can they come to see the opportunities across the U.K.? Maybe here’s a theme to return to another day.
Add your comments below…
Eco-Inclusive?
Why is recycling so often seen as something to be conducted only in grim carparks? Why can’t it (at least in the case of small amounts of material) be viewed as an opportunity for people actually to get together in their communities?
There have been some very interesting debates buzzing around this week. Not only have we (some of us, anyway) been hearing about Enterprise in all its manifectations, social and otherwise, but there have been big debates about how we should get a grip on environmental issues such as emissions and sustainability.
Mulling these things over, I also happened to come across some stuff on how difficult things currently are for towns and ports dependent on farming and fisheries. It strikes me that’s not really too much different from some of the issues in the disadvanatged areas I sometimes work in. They all need ‘new’ ways to build their economies, and to enhance their social and business connectivities.
Which led me to think more about the Eco- aspects of Enterprise.
Let me ask, why do we make our domestic recycling facilities so grim? Do they really all have to look like blots on the landscape? Isn’t there some way that at least some local recycling facilities could be part of the community ‘offer’?
The joined-up alternative
What would it look like if some recycling became a feature of community connection? Somewhere where people could pop in as they pass to the shops or park, and where you could at the same time join friends for a coffee, let the kids play, or visit the library?
In the past few years bookshops have at least twigged that people who buy books also like tea and cakes; it’s proved to be good for custom. Why isn’t the same applied to the idea of recycling? (I’m not talking here of the mega-visit with the car full of all sorts; that’s still a superstore carpark job.)
If the theme were ‘little and often’, and the facilities alongside recycling permitted, recycling points could become community hubs which local people visited becaue it’s a good place to go – recycling to one side (preferably covered), playspace and coffee shop / library / community facility / adult education venue of whatever sort at the other…. with the feelgood factor guaranteed, as we do our eco-duty.
The imaginative entrepreneur
Maybe the ‘problem’ is that eco- / recycling is perceived as a green wellie activity; not something for entrepreneurs, unless they’re of the ‘social’ sort. Let’s move from the vague notion that only Environmental Officers – who might be thought of (doubtless unfairly) as a pretty puritan lot – should have a remit for recycling.
Let’s see if this whole activity can become a central part of community life. If it gives people with their small bags of recyclable material, their pushchairs and their shopping an opportunity to enjoy half an hour’s chat, that would be really great.
Then maybe people can find out more about how they all connect and what in common they have or would like…. never underestimate the importance of actual person-to-person encounters when thinking about capacity building in communities!
And if local entrepreneurs can use any of this to develop or tempt business, that’s better still.
Social Enterprise Day – Today!
Social Enterprise is a bit of a mystery to some people… so today is a chance to find out more.
Today is Social Enterprise Day. Perhaps you knew that already, or perhaps you didn’t; but it’s also Social Enterprise Week, focusing primarily on young people, so there is bound to be a bit of media activity.
So what is Social Enterprise?
The Government’s definition of it is ‘a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose inthe business or the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.’
In other words, social businesses are set up to ‘make a difference’ for society or the environment.
More of them than you think…
Recent research has shown that there are some 15,000 UK businesses which are social enterprises. That’s about £18 billion per year generated in the economy, and around 475,000 jobs. This includes activities as varied as Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant, Cafedirect, and the Eden Project, or Liverpool’s own Furniture Resource Centre.
You can find out more about all this from the Social Enterprise Coalition or from the Enterprise Week website.
More Cars Are Not The Answer
There’s a current proposal for legislation to reduce car speeds to protect the environment and our resources. Environmental impact assessments are also important. Perhaps publicly funded activities should be assessed in terms of their proximity to public transport hubs.
I admit it, I don’t enjoy driving. If the trains behaved themselves, I’d always travel that way (though of course I can’t and don’t). But now I have a rationale for my preference: cars at speed are not only downright dangerous to those immediately around them, but they also cause even more damage to the environment than cars travelling less quickly. Official.
Next to the rail station?
So here’s an idea: why not insist that ALL publicly funded bodies be required to transact their non-local meetings and other business within, say, a kilometer of a major railway station?
And require also that they have to give details of a wide range of public transport routes every time they call people together? (This needn’t be as difficult and costly as it sounds… just post details permanently on the relevant website and refer people to it in their meeting papers, every time – with penalties if the info isn’t up to date.)
Before anyone points it out, I’m perfectly aware that the chances of the first part of my idea happening are approximately nil.
‘Environmental impact’ aware
I can’t see, however, why the second part should not be done. Let’s at least insist that those who convene activities involving public expense of any kind become aware of the damage they may be doing, using that funding, to the environment and resources which we all have to share.
Stakeholders In Liverpool’s Hope Street
There are exciting things happening in Liverpool’s Hope Street. After more than a decade of consistent lobbying by HOPES: The Hope Street Association, it looks as though real, beneficial change is about to occur….
The past few weeks have seen a lot of activity in the Hope Street community; and it’s all good stuff.
We in HOPES: The Hope Street Association, a charity bringing together community and stakeholder interests, have been collaborating with Liverpool Vision and other partners for quite a while now to bring about improvements in the public realm – we recently obtained almost £3m. for this after a ten-year campaign!
Physical developments can lead economic ones
As I’d always believed would happen, evidence actually on the street of visible improvements has provided the impetus required to take forward the economic and business developments which the Hope Street Quarter so badly needs.
So today some of us sat down as representatives of the Hope Street Stakeholders and made plans which will have real impact on the Quarter and, with luck, well beyond. This has been HOPES’ intention for some long while, and it’s genuinely exciting to see it happening, with people from various organisations (arts, community, education and faith) and private enterprise sharing discussions to make substantive progress.
What happens next?
There are a few months to go before the public realm work will be completed and then we shall start to think about public art to ‘represent’ the communities of the Quarter, and so forth.
In the meantime, we’ve got the Hope Street Festivals group going with a view to next year, and now we’re planning some public and private enterprise moves – more about which I hope to report later.
So, watch this space. In quite a short time we will I hope have proof positive that bottom-up campaigns to benefit quite varied communities really can produce results!
The Tesco Effect
It may not be fashionable to say so, but maybe Tesco has a point when it says it can work to help develop local trading and communities. The evidence is not conclusive, but neither have all the arguments as yet been fully explored.
The debate about Tesco is all around us in Liverpool just now. There are strongly vocal groups, some of them just local people and traders, and some of them I suspect part of larger national campaigns, who are implacably opposed to any further development of Tesco anywhere near our patch.
Others, far more quietly, would actually rather like a bigger, brighter Tesco (or any other large supermarket) not far from home, where they can pop in, parking assured, 24 / 7.
It seems however that whilst one of Tesco’s applications, to the north of the city, has now been approved, there will be a big fight over the south city bid. Officers have recommended agreement, politicians mostly oppose it; so who knows what will happen when it all goes to appeal?
Reasons for unease
As far as I can gather, opposition to Tesco and other supermarkest falls into some four categories:
1. we live nearby, and shoppers will block our street parking, and maybe make a noise;
2. green space is at risk;
3. local traders will suffer;
4. we are opposed to any big business which may be getting the upper hand.
Reasons for quietly hoping plans will go ahead, however, tend simply to be that it’s convenient, open long hours and the range of merchandise is good.
Mixed messages
Maybe I’ve missed something, but it feels to me as if a number of mesages are coming over here, not very coherently.
Firstly, concerns about street parking are persuasive for local councillors dependent on electoral support – let the people park – but they are not otherwise very convincing. Mechanisms exist and are easily put in plaxce to prevent parking altogether, or allocate resients’ priority, etc; and in any case most Tesco stores have quite adequate parking facilities of their own, if they are permitted to establish these.
The concern about green space of course follows from this – more Tesco space, less green space; but Section 106 arrangements (which basically require developers to ‘give’ something to the local community in return for ‘taking’ a local footprint) can be brought to bear by Council Officers, so that alternative facilities will be part of the package. Perhaps not everyone from the Council for the Protection of Rural England will be happy with the end result; but, to be frank, cities are not rural.
The argument that local traders will suffer is more difficult; the jury is still out on this, because the evidence is generally unconclusive. Organisations such as the New Economics Foundation suggest that the effect on local traders may be damaging; this is therefore an issue to be taken seriously. It is probably however less clear that at least some of these local traders would have done well even if the lcaol supermarket had not been built.
And finally, the question of market share needs to be considered. Tesco, for instance, has about 30% of this in Britain, almost twice as much as its nearest competitor. But whether Tesco should be constrained is a matter in the hands of the Office of Fair Trading, not something which can be resolved at local level in a narrow context.
The counter-argument
The issues so far discussed are perhaps only part of the story.
Let us put aside matters of investment, when building large supermarkets, in local infrastructure and construction and so forth. These are usually acknowledged at least in part at some level.
But only rarely is it also noted that Tesco, like its main competitors, offers well-defined and nationally led staff training and development; the pay to start with is not especially good, but the opportunity to move up the ladder (or across to another one) is certainly there. In some communities, there are few other opportunities of this sort; but where these opportunities are on offer, specially in otherwise less advantaged areas, they are surely of value.
And, finally, we have to ask ourselves why local traders, if they really do want to keep going, are not forming liaisons at the professional as well as the protectionist level. Are they sharing responsibilities such as staff training, local environmental improvements and the like? What, if anything, is the collective deal, with or without the supermarket in their midst?
Maybe Tesco is right to carry on growing, or just maybe it should be restrained; but the basis of the debate so far does not explore all the issues at stake. If the simple demand to ‘stop!’ were replaced by a dialogue on how to develop, with or without large supermarkets, local people and politicians might discover that there are more ways forward than they think.
Art In Whose Context? (Private ‘Versus’ Public)
Art and culture are often dismissed as peripheral to public life; but private investment in the arts is serious business. There is a strong case for the position that what’s good enough for private investment, is also good enough for investment in the public sphere.
Looks like we’re all a bit muddled about what the arts are ‘for’…. Revent news stories have revealed that a Cheshire Member of Parliament is up in arms because the North West Development Agency has over the past few years spent a seven figure sum on (mostly very large-scale) public art; and there’s another rumpus about money being ‘wasted’ on engaging professional artists to do work in hospitals (see Is Art good for your Health?); and the list could go on….
Conflicting perceptions
If ever there was confusion, you can find it when people debate the arts. That is, if they debate at all. For some, there’s no need to debate, they just know – usually, that it’s all a waste of time and money.
And, perhaps even more worryingly, often the arts are not even considered when people look at plans for the future. Arts and culture are add-ons which can happen later, if someone remembers to get around to it. Certainly no need to seek professional advice or make sure there’s an outline arts strategy in place from the beginning.
Yet the same folk who berate public art often have no objection to the private sort. To parody, maybe a little unkindly, old masters in oak drawing (or international corporate board) rooms are one thing; vibrant work on accessible public display is another.
The cost factor
An underlying theme in this seems to be that arts and culture are O.K. as long as nobody publicly accountable has to shell out for them now. Perhaps this is why Museums seem to be able to make their case more easily than the Performing Arts – the less unrelentlessly labour intensive, and the more thematically linked to ‘tourism’, i.e. ‘business’, the better.
Ideally, we gather, the arts should be delivered by volunteers (amateurs) who ‘give something back’ – whatever that means – whilst people who are paid should concentrate on careers in the basics, treatments, training, tarmac, tills and the like; and of course everyone understands these are all essentials of modern living. But would that life were so simple…. though I wouldn’t like it to be so boring.
Missing links
There are two immediate snags with the ‘do arts for pleasure not pay’ argument.
The first is that, if no-one takes a proefssional role in the arts, there will soon be no-one left to show the next generation how to do it. The arts demand high levels of skill which take a long time to acquire – if anyone is to invest this amount of energy and time, they need a reasonable assurance that there will be a professional pay-back later, whether this be as a painter, a performer or even, say, a public parks and open spaces artist and animateur.
Secondly, art in all its forms can be the ‘glue’ which attaches a community to its various and infomal formal structures. The arts offer opportunities for local pride (think of Newcastle’s Angel in the North, or Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall), they can involve people directly (street theatre, music, film projects etc) and they provide ‘real’ reasons for communities at every level to come together and to share a common interest and identity.
Private or public?
Maybe the context/s of art and culture are what define how we perceive it all. Perhaps if we recognised the various posturings and positions from an underlying ‘private vs. public’ perspective we can begin to make sense of them. The confusion then drops away, for me at least. If art and culture are good enough for private settings, they are good enough for public contexts too.
Why The Merseyside Economy Needs More SciTech Research & Development
A recent meeting of the North West Business Leadership Forum and The Mersey Partnership has focused minds on how to engage the Knowledge Economy at its highest levels. Reseach and Development are universally understood to enhance economies. The challenge now for Merseyside entrepreneurs and businesses is therefore to grasp the exciting opportunities emerging via our growing high-tech knowledge base.
On Thursday (10 November) this week I went to a joint North West Business Leadership Forum / Mersey Partnership forum in Liverpool. Attendance was high, this being the first opportunity for some of us to hear the views of Robert Crawford, the new Chief Executive of The Mersey Partnership.
Robert’s analysis of where Merseyside ‘is at’ was of course worth hearing. In just six weeks he has obviously seen and digested a great deal, and he shared some of his initial thoughts with us during his talk. What particularly encouraged me, however, was his emphasis on the Knowledge Economy at the highest levels: his questions around retention of post-grads as well as first degree graduates, and his challenge to our three local universities to increase ‘Reach In’ – the term used by States-side colleges for close alignment with local businesses, especially at a time when private corporates have to some extent reduced their own in-house research and development.
Nations don’t compete; businesses compete
Innovation, productivity and skills development, as MIT and other studies have told us, are globally the key to enterprise success. It follows therefore research and development are at least as important in Merseyside as anywhere else. Our sub-regional productivity is lower than elsewhere, but our higher education base is robust. The task is to bring the potential for R&D into play to increase productivity, as has happened dramatically in parts of China and elsewhere. Knowledge inevitably traverses continents freely, but it is up to businesses to engage it for their own use.
Places as far apart as Bangalore, North Carolina and Ireland have found ways to bolster their economies using very high skills. We in the North West of England now have the opportunity to do the same. Fortunately we have just secured a huge advantage via the new-found confidence in North West science at Daresbury and in Liverpool’s own university science base. It needs to be said, however, that this work is in every sense regional and (inter)national, as well as sub-regional. Merseyside will get nowhere in this vast emerging network of science and technology without collaboration with our erstwhile city-region competitors. None of us is big enough to do it on our own.
Moving forward
For the Merseyside economy and its people to flourish in this new context, as Robert Crawford said in his address, we need mechanisms in place to define our own sub-regional partnerships, and to identify and remove local impediments to progress. For this to happen we also need to map our baseline/s and to have confidence that public sector intervention will be carefully considered, timely and appropriate.
One part of this positive partnership development will be the increasing involvement of high-achieving people who have links with our city and sub-region; they may not all live here, but there are many other ways in which win-win synergies can be developed.
For me, such synergies clearly include the huge numbers of high-skills liaisons which occur virtually and person-to-person in the North West’s world-class science programmes. But whilst there can be huge benefits for Merseyside which arise from these endeavours, we must never escape forget that the science itself is funded internationally, and its potential impact is global. Only if Merseyside’s local entrepreneurs take the time to grasp the opportunities to hand will we benefit particularly. The next challenge is to persuade enough of them that such apparently esoteric activity actually has relevance for their bottom line.
The Philosophy Of Hedges
Hedges are protective, productive and permeable. They offer haven but also permit the flow of light and air. They respond to change by organic adjustment and they can sustain themselves. They are a metaphor for healthy boundaries, rural or urban, able to adjust and yet still retain integrity.
Hedges have always fascinated me. As a small child I walked with my sister and father along country pathways between fields, my father, a rural science teacher, all the time pointing out the features of the hedges,and explaining how, as living things, these hedges had been both nurtured and shaped – sometimes for many centuries -whilst they in turn sustained life for other plants, and birds and animals.
The craft of the local hedger, the names of his tools and the names of all the bushes, grasses and wildflowers… details now elude me, but abidingly the ideas underpinning of the significance of hedges remain.
It is not therefore surprising that the gardens of my homes as an adult have always been enclosed by hedges. Some were there long before I arrived, but quite a few have been planted and grown by ourselves. I especially enojy it when I find a tiny shoot growing from a random seed or berry, and can plant it amongst the larger inhabitants of our urban hedgerow. Thus in the fullness of time have emerged quite a number of hollies, some buddleia and even a few rustic roses and hawthornes.
The urban meaning of hedges
My professional life now is a thousand miles away from the innocent rural ambles of my childhood. Perhaps the contrast is almost Cider With Rosie vs. The City; but the significance of boundaries for me continues to be beyond doubt.
People still require boundaries, real and metaphorical, for their comfort and protection. Not many of us feel at ease in unmarked and uncharted territory. But, whether we consider and acknowledge it or not, a metaphorical ‘brick wall’ can be constraining in a way that a ‘hedge’ never is.
Hedges let us see the light next door, they permit the passage of air (but diminish the onslaught of the gale), they support life in a host of ways. Brick walls, on the other hand, block light and air, and do not offer sustenance and safe haven to small creatures. Hedges may take years to grow, but they adapt and respond organically to change. Brick walls are quickly constructed but come down only when they are dismantled – and then they are no more.
Protective, productive and permeable
The hedge as a boundary is a model for both rural and urban life. Hedges protect, but they don’t constrain, they are productive but they are organic in their response to their environment, and they are permeable, enabling flow of light and air without any loss of their role in defining boundaries.
Rural fields and urban communities alike need to be marked out. But let’s not forget that the marking of boundaries is best done in ways that respond to changing needs and opportunities over time, encouraging cross-over and the flow of the small ideas which may one day become big players on our territory. Hedges with their rich ever-changing diversity, the haven for a host of hidden small lives, serve us better than brick walls.
Where Were The People When They Did The Planning?
There are housing estates designed in such a way that it’s almost to find a route in and out of them without a car. Many people on the edge of urban areas live in such places, cut off from others, in their own constrained ‘comfort’ zones. Whatever were the planners thinking of? And what can be done now to raise horizons and expectations?
I’ve recently been visiting a number of ‘disadvantaged’ communities, walking and driving around housing estates and out-of-town areas which many of us who don’t live in them rarely see.
It’s often quite a pleasant job. Most folk anywhere will make you feel welcome and at home. People in these areas as much as anywhere else will of course do their best to help, advise and engage with those who visit them, and there’s always lots to learn.
But… but… whatever were the planners thinking of when they permitted these estates to be devised? Where are the centres, where are the decent shops, where’s the clinic / surgery, where’s the (secondary) school, where are the meeting places? And, oh so importantly, where on earth are the quick, safe links between the various localities?
For many of these areas, there are in effect only one or at best two roads in and out; plus, the linking footpaths, if they, are grim in every sense – not at all routes that most of us would care to take.
All this means that many more people than we might imagine live in ‘closed’ communities. Public transport is poor, cars few and far between; there is precious little chance of going outside one’s immediate vicinity.
Here, then, is planned ‘comfort zoning’ of the worst sort. The big wide world may be out there, but it’s almost inaccessible; and the small zone of personal experience which is easily navigable becomes far more enclosing than it decently should.
It must also be said, on the basis of my recent experience, that even when planners have included facilities within given areas, these facilities have sometimes been allowed to transmute from ‘community’ facilities to yet more housing – the shop or centre wasn’t doing well; it closed; then it was acquired for private developers…. and now it’s flats. So now there are even fewer ‘facilities’. How do ‘they’ allow this to happen?
If the next generation is to see the world through more open eyes, the current one has to be able to take youngsters out and about. If adults in a community are to raise their expectations and amibitions, they have to be able to meet others and see things beyond their immdeiate experience.
Nowhere (except pubs?) to meet, and no way out of the estate, are not the best encouragements to the necessary wider agenda for progress. There’s a job of work for infrastructure designers – get in there and open up the passages between areas; and there’s an opportunity for entrepreneurs, public and private – start to add value to communities with meeting / leisure and proper retail facilities.
The enterprise is to some small extent beginning to happen, but how can it take off when communities remain isolated and the chances of increasing market size in an area are contrained quite simply by almost no ways in and out?
Dreaming Realist 