How do we envisage our work lives? What sort of businesses do we see in our life and in our community in 2030? What jobs would you like to be available to you? What skills would you be learning?
Entrepreneurs had access to community owned spaces where they could experiment with their ideas and share skills.
Our ambitions for a circular economy moved beyond recyclable packaging towards using no packaging at all.
The council involved citizens in the allocation of spaces and resources with more participatory democracy and participatory budgeting.
On Tuesday the 13th of April 2021 we hosted a workshop to explore the delicious futures we would like to see unfold by 2030. Here is the discussion that came out of it:
"If you had a big building like the [abandoned] police station that was filled with loads of makers who were making money within Lambeth then that would generate more income for the community especially if it was a community like a non profit organisation where the money was actually going back into the community."
"In 2030 I'd like to get rid of all the remotely owned, shareholder run businesses and start having proper dynamic locally resilient stuff on the high street and we'll celebrate the wonderful town center that we've got.[...] We could turn these buildings into mixed use markets and studios. I think H&M might become an art gallery for the locally produced art that we're doing. There would be a place for the new people's democracy to meet as well. But we'd bring them onto the high street so that people can see what is going on. So at the moment if you need a meeting space you've got to go and hide somewhere where no one knows that things are happening."
"In 2030 if the market is owned by the community then that makes a very big difference. If they aren't, there is always that potential for some developer type to pull the rug from under it and we'd have to start all over again."
"The community can raise the capital to own spaces. It's been done before and can be done again. They can buy, if not full ownership, then partial ownership that gives them more of a say."
"I want to see a VR games room for the young people. [...] Health stores as well [...] with a consultant inside. It would be nice to have that added benefit of the consultant in the store to help you, guide through your health journey. […] I want to see more natural hair salons."
Nicola
"On the high street there's a lot of tailors and they hand design and make stuff to fit people properly and the things that you buy are specific to you. They represent something about you and you have a say and participate in their creation."
All containers that we buy from shops should be not recyclable but returnable and reusable."
"I imagined young people on pathways of learning that were only to do with what they were interested in and nothing to do with arriving at a destination that had to be about earning money."
"[In 2030] I'm coming into the garden to pick things for my breakfast and my food for the day and also anything surplus I'm going to take somewhere, either to swap it or share it."
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