Community Regenerators

For the first time I am really challenged about what I can talk about in the blog, which is funny really because I don't know if anybody is reading this!
Spent the morning in negotiations, this time with the council who were costing up for us a project to create a village square on our car park. This was first suggested by John Thomson's report which is somewhere online, but I am not sure where... www.rmtportal.com looks like a good start! It was quite exciting dreaming of the possiblities and great fun sharing some of my Holland and Sweden pictures. They weren't so hot about the shared space idea but that will come. The funding of this is another issue, I guess it depends how much the scheme costs, but it was encouraging to hear that Calderdale had already worked with Halifax parish in doing a landscape scheme.
Afternoon saw me taking to councillors from across Yorkshire about how communities can engage directly in regenration. It might be me but I didn't get the impression that these elected people were entirely convinced... they still keep talking about community groups delivering projects when given a grant rather than as propper partners with things to bring of their own. Every community group has assets, many don't realise it. They might have land, or buildings, they have the good will, but what they have most of all is connections.
Like Cinderella they need a prince to see through the rags to the princess underneath, to kiss the frogs, to kill the dragons! Our councillors need to be fairy tale heroes and not the wicked ones!