Community Building
The Pelican Pub on the outbound from Manchester on Washway Road, in Timperley has been derelict and unused for over a decade. Thousands of local people drive past it every day.
Many will still remember it being an alright pub. What happened? And more importantly, what is happening? This is exactly what myself and many other local residents think and ask themselves (usually stuck in traffic in their car) and anyone who will listen.
We love a good moan though. Not for no reason! My moaning comes with some form of action at least.
So I take the opportunity to utilise my creative skills and some help from Google Earth Studio (I know)...
It is impressive if you haven't tried it. I find it is perfect for place based ideation/development proposal/presentations.
What I've made is basic, but I can add to it now I have the framework.
Starting is the one thing that really counts I've learnt.
Land Owners\Custodians
There is a community incentive/commitment to be responsible. Hence Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Leaving a building to go rotten and stay empty for over a decade is not modelling responsibility in my eyes. Good CSR 'hygiene' (and resulting tax incentives) can be had in this way.
There is a clear opportunity for them to solve a problem and save money, by turning their anti-social eyesore into a community resource for the long term future.
Perhaps there could be an opportunity for community ownership if it wasn't privately owned.
Anyway. All of these difficult questions are impossible for me to answer and solve, so I choose to visualise an ideation of what could be and to present that idea to people who have those answers.
If it doesn't happen, all is not lost. Just sharing the idea is powerful and can stick in the mind for later, should any such opportunity arise in the future.
What id like is, firstly a place where we, as a community can grow, harvest, process, cook, eat and store food in cooperation. The food would be free for workers and as a 'pay as you can' model for everyone else.