Learning from East Marsh: Inspiration for Middleton by James Luckham
On Wednesday last week, I had the honour of being invited along to visit East Marsh United East Marsh United (EMU), a community group in a ward of Grimsby that shares the same name. Visiting EMU was a truly inspiring experience, seeing how they have crafted a beautiful strip of community out of what was once dubbed 'Murder Mile'.
The driving force behind EMU's work has been their CEO, Billy Dasein. To give you a glimpse into how EMU is run, one of Billy's colleagues told me CEO in this case stands for anything from Chief Enthusiasm Officer to Chief Empathy Officer. Billy was born and raised on Rutland Street, the centre of East Marsh. Having left Grimsby for university, and then worked away, Billy returned to Rutland Street to look after his dad after his mum passed away. The local council had called a meeting in response to problems of crime and anti-social behaviour. Billy was originally reluctant to attend, but when a neighbour prompted that his mum would have gone, he went down to the meeting. This meeting was filled with the patronising, paternalistic approach typical of local councils, until Billy "got on [his] soapbox" with a clear message: if there was to be any change in the East Marsh, it had to come from the residents themselves.
What started with 30 people giving their details at that meeting has, about a decade later, transformed Rutland Street and the surrounding area. East Marsh United own 18 homes on the street, which are rented out at a price that would be completely covered by the minimum possible Housing Benefit, meaning no resident would need to go into debt to afford their home. EMU also run several community sessions in a local church, including dedicated sessions for young people and families. Thanks to a partnership with Create Streets, the corner plot by the church is being transformed into a community garden, giving residents opportunities to get involved in growing and taking care of nature. A few staff are employed by EMU (including a Chief Storyteller, another insight into the EMU approach), but the majority of their work comes from the residents themselves, covering projects on people and places, knowledge transfer partnerships, creativity, community roots, and much more. East Marsh United's self-deterministic methods are a great inspiration to us at Middleton Cooperating, and we hope to harness the same community energy right here in Midd.
I was lucky enough to attend EMU, representing Middleton Cooperating, alongside a bubble of community savers from Miles Platting, Wythenshawe and Hulme. This was made possible thanks to the fantastic work of Community Led Action and Savers Support (CLASS - Community Savers), who brought these phenomenal people together. CLASS is a charity committed to supporting, developing, and facilitating majority women-led community and co-production processes focused on reducing poverty and inequality. What that looks like in practice is connecting everyday people in their communities to save small amounts of money and help build financial independence. CLASS' work is completely in step with what we're doing at Midd Coop, so much so that you might even see a Community Savers group popping up in Middleton in the near future!
If you're lucky enough to live in M24, and for some reason you're not a member of Middleton Cooperating yet, you can sign up Join us | Middleton Co-operating.
Regardless of where you live, you can keep up to date with everything we're doing by following our socials; GMLivingIncome Official: Instagram, Facebook | Linktree). Just like East Marsh United, we're making the changes we want to see for our communities, not waiting for anyone to come and save us.
