Something that has been keeping me busy in 2025 is an emerging audacious plan to buy a community building for our neighbourhood.
I live on the Tower Gardens Estate in Tottenham, north London – in the heart of one of the most deprived wards in one of the most deprived local authority areas in England. There is no easily accessible community space on our (large!) estate – and the one potential building – the old estate office, which was a Sure Start centre for a while – is now on Haringey’s disposals list.
A few of us have been working to cook up a plan to get this building and turn it into a community asset. The council are supportive of our plan but need us to raise the money to buy it from them. We think there’s huge potential, but we’re in the classic bind at the start of a project like this – we need money for commissioning our own valuation and condition surveys, and while we’ve done some super fun events (see pics!) to get ideas and opinions, there’s loads more co-design and broadening of our thinking we need to do.
We have such dreams for the building – a community garden, a library of things, a public living room, hireable community space, a music practice room, a community-led retrofit centre for the estate – but if we can’t raise money quickly (the end of the financial year?!) it will be put on the market and then who knows what will happen. Our current thinking is set out here.
We’ve launched a fundraiser to help cover initial costs – here – and we’re applying for as many pots of feasibility funding as we can. We’ve been knocked back from the AHF feasibility pot as the building isn’t listed (although it is an important building in an important conservation area!). I know this is a tight time of year and there are zillions of important places to put money. But I would love advice from the wise folk in my network about how we might get over this initial project start up funding hump.
We’ve got a great group and a decent plan, and I know that we can make something real happen here next year. Really happy to chat to anyone who might have leads on useful Haringey-based funding pots!!
Reflecting on 2025 and what I’ve learned this year!
Some key highlights
Making a podcast, obviously! Getting Corporate Bodies out into the world has been a real joy. Getting to work with Mark again and to have some profoundly deep and interesting conversations with very wise and wonderful people has stretched my brain and ambitions in all sorts of ways. Check it out if you haven’t already, I am very proud of it.
The patient, mature and expansive work I’ve had the honour to be part of at Catalyst, as we move to close the CIC. There’s a mix of fierce clarity, recognising that the right path is one of careful closure, and excitement of seeing that we can have a bigger impact by closing proactively and redistributing our remaining funds. There’s obviously also some grief and sadness as Catalyst is one of the most values-led and expansive organisations I’ve been part of – but I know its ripples will continue to expand.
My freelance practice is really starting to take shape! I’ve loved helping organisations and teams conjure the future, building emergent strategies and healthy cultures together. The mix of 1:1 and team coaching, strategy consultancy and facilitation is really energising, and I’ve loved being able to bring together and use frameworks like Three Horizons, Deep Democracy, permaculture and sociocracy, with a nice dose of sci-fi thrown in. I will have some capacity in the new year so if you’d like to chat about how I can work with you, get in touch!
Things are going from strength to strength at Digital Commons, and the addition of the wonderful Sara and Carmen to the team has been really impactful. Building the tech infrastructure that social movements need is hard and slow work, but it’s beginning to emerge – check out the latest updates to LandExplorer.coop, and keep your eyes open for some of the outputs for our Data for Housing Justice collab with Shared Assets early next year…
And – last but not least – I’ve absolutely relished the power of being away from my kitchen table and sharing a lovely space with the wonderful Beth and Deepa – check out the view from my desk! Being in a place where things are being made every day really helps me stay grounded, and integrating a mini-commute into my days has helped hugely with my mental health. Strong recommend!!
