Environmental activism in the community

I have become very closely engaged with my own community, originally due to environmental and social problems that needed to be urgently addressed. I live in an area known as the North Shields Triangle, in North Shields, in the North East of England. It is a residential area of turn of the century brick terraced housing originally built for shipyard workers, of approximately 300 separate properties. This now consists of a mixture of privately owned property, private rented, housing association (including sheltered accommodation) and council housing.

We formed the North Shields Triangle Residents Association in August 1997 in response to developing social problems, and a deteriorating environment. This included youth crime and vandalism, numbers of problem families creating serious stress and nuisance to the community, derelict areas used for tipping, widespread litter and dog mess, derelict properties, and problems made by busy traffic in a residential area, causing streets to be unsafe to pedestrians and especially local children. People have even been knocked over in a back lane being used by private cars and taxis as a rat run.

Through a number of public meetings, and the voluntary efforts of residents, the community has now come together to address these problems. We have brought our area to the attention of the police and the local authority, and have set about doing what we can ourselves. This has included organising clean up days in partnership with the local authority, pressing for traffic calming measures, organising a neighbourhood watch scheme, raising funds to support a local football team through the provision of strips and equipment, getting blocked drains cleared, damaged signs replaced, organising the purchase and provision of hanging baskets and planted tubs for the streets, clearing derelict sites and many other achievements including the organising of regular meetings and some social events.

Upper Elsdon Street before and after

Having started to address the immediate problems we faced, we decided to look at much more ambitious plans for environmental development. After a lot of work and a little bit of luck, we were successful in winning from the Government, just under £500,000 to transform our area into a Home Zone. This scheme has brought about significant traffic calming measures, improved street surfaces and the introduction of a number of new trees.

As a result of our success in winning the Home Zone  bid, the local authority bidding unit was also successful in winning substantial funding for urban regeneration from Europe (success attracts success). This enabled the funding for a number of other regeneration schemes for North Tyneside, but was also special for us, in that it enabled the funding of a major community arts programme in The Triangle.

Seymour Street before and after

I was appointed as lead artist on this project, and in turn brought in five other artists for their support, skills and experience. These were Janine Goldsworthy, Matt Fleming, Debbie Bower, Neil Canavan and David Salkeld.

Through an extensive process of community engagement and consultation, conducted through children’s workshops in the local school, family workshops, public meetings and street events, a number of designs were developed and proposed which related directly to ideas which had come from the community. Particularly from the local children involved.

Diamond cat collage

Island Mural and Lamp Post Snake

Those designs agreed to be strongest, and most appreciated by the general community were carried forward to construction and installation. These have included a laminated, carved and coloured timber mural, cast iron and cast glass street sets, street sculpture, street mosaic and mural work.

Our Home Zone has not just meant better looking streets; it has also been a big step forward in helping the community to pull together. The building of the Home Zone has not been the end of the story, but is a huge step forward in fulfilling our dream to create and live in a clean, green and friendly urban village.

Halloween and Glass Pool Pyramid

Seymour Street