The very nice people over at Gaping Void just published this piece. It’ a very good piece and triggered a thought - as so often happens when I read Gaping Void.
When I was a kid, there was some developer in the village ‘developing’ and to make his plan work he needed to ‘relocate’ the village green .. which in all honesty was nothing .. a bit of grass that flooded from time to time. Why you would build new houses on a piece of ground that flooded is for another time. But that ‘bit of grass’ served the village well .. since it could be shaped and remolded for anything on any occasion as needed. And it was.
However, he was granted permission to build on the understanding that he build a new village green somewhere close by. (Being a kid, I have no idea if there was any debate about building new houses on a flood plain .. different times, my concern was that one of our bike paths to the local wood was going to be blocked by a new house.)
Back to the plot.
Houses were built and a brand new village green, complete with ‘village hall’, children’s playground and of course a ‘green’ was presented to the ‘powers-that-be’ and everybody was happy. The houses never flooded, the village congregated in groups with tents on special occasions .. at times you could barely tell our village from a Midsomer Fete. Even the playground was used every night after school. It was a natural place of congregation.
Oops, sorry, that is what the developer wrote in his submission.
The houses flooded the very year after the development was completed and the village green was presented as described … but nobody used it. There already was a ramshackle village hall (actually a metal roofed approximation to a Nissen hut, but it was our Nissen hut. The expected events never really took off and the whole project fell into disuse and was eventually pulled down. The villagers meanwhile, continued to congregate in the Nissen hut and I found another route to the woods.
All this to say that I agree with Hugh (although we come to the same conclusion through alternative routes. Roots?
A gathering place is more than a place it is about people. And ‘we the people’ in the village were not consulted. Not to say we rejected it out of spite, it just wasn’t ours .. in the way that what we had before - and after - was.
Please do not hesitate to share this, because just like that developer in my home village - I am trying to build a community. Unlike that developer, it is happening naturally as we bring more like-minded souls to the thinking and ideas.
Hi John
Hope all is going well with you and all the best for the year ahead