Mission
INVOKING THE RIGHT TO MANAGE - Registered by SARAG Member, Ima Freeman::
This is an ambitious and audaciously aimed challenge: The South Acton Residents Action Group (SARAG) seeks to guide the application of Britain's vaguely known 1994 Right to Manage (RTM) Statute[1] as a strategic citizens investment in ...
creatively self-managed neighbourhoods (neighbauhaus)
habitat stewardship towards sustainability
participative regeneration[2] and renewal of ...
... the UK’s much maligned council-owned residential estates: defining them as ‘shared-homes’ that are desirable & inspirational places to be born; enjoyable places to live; rewarding 'Small-Is-Beautiful' places to work - see www.schumacherinstitute.org.uk & www.respublica.org.uk
SARAG, a community think tank and co-organiser/networker, is a member of the National Federation of Tenant Management Organisations (NFTMO). In 2009 the NFTMO designated SARAG a 'Guide TMO' to network & promote the arts, crafts & science of tenant management. This is regulated by the Tenant Empowerment Prog. (TEP) of Britain's Department of Communties & Local Government (DCLG) - Twitter: @ TenantPower.
Category
Education and Skills
Additional Information
"EXCELLENCE IS TO DO A COMMON THING IN AN UNCOMMON WAY" - Dr Booker T Washington
A Challenge for Marketers > Architects > Graphic Artists > Landscapers > Related Practitioners & Interns, all In-Residence-Online advancing the 'Right to Manage' -- London Borough of Ealing, UK and Beyond
The Cabe/Arts & Business Award-winning SARAG Guide TMO was founded in 1997, emerging from two architects-in-residence workshops (themed 'Seeing is Believing') led by architects John Thompson & Partners in 1997 and 2000 (www.jtp.co.uk.). SARAG now seeks to contribute radically to orienting as co-operatively managed ‘shared-homes’[3] all of Britain’s council owned residential estates. We start with those of heritage-rich Ealing Borough as reviewed by architecture & masterplanning consultancy EDAW/AECOM (www.edaw.com)[4].
<RTM & THE 'FATHER OF ADVERTISING'>
The RTM is akin to the ‘Aided Self-Help’ social housing component of Puerto Rico’s 1950s ‘Operation Bootstrap’: a smartly marketed made-in-the-Caribbean socio-economic programme in which ‘Father of Advertising’, David Ogilvy played the lead role. Ogilvy, in his own words, deemed that assignment his “proudest achievement.” So there, the potential of the RTM, from the patriarch himself.[5]
The Right To Manage makes heritage count supremely: “The further backward you look, the further forward you can see” -Winston S Churchill); “Open your eyes and look; in this great future you can’t forget the past” – Bob Marley
London’s Courtauld Institute art graduate Gillian Darley is an award-winning architectural and landscape journalist/author. Her biographies of celebrated 17th century diarist John Evelyn, the John Ruskin mentored social housing innovator, Octavia Hill[6], and legendary architect John Soane are all assessed as seminal.
But the work for which it appears she is most admired is Villages of Vision. In this she unveils a fascinating area of national heritage — a neat profiling of hundreds of planned villages across Britain and Ireland. Included are Ealing’s Bedford Park and Brentham estates and four World Heritage Site candidates: Saltaire, Bournville, Port Sunlight (www.portsunlightvillage.com) and New Lanark (www.newlanark.org) – all characterised by residents sharing collective ownership of governance and preventative maintenance of where they live[7].
<A REVOLUTIONARY INVENTION>
Council housing, one of Britain’s truly revolutionary social inventions (easily ranking with the National Health Service in original intent), is in many ways a twentieth century up-scaled adaptation of Darley’s visionary world.
But, alas, when municipal architects pioneered the council housing model[8] they mistakenly ignored Octavia Hill’s self-management vision and the Ruskin/Morris preventative maintenance mantra (“Put protection in place … to stave off decay by daily care”). That mistake was confronted 22 years ago - when Sir George Young, then Ealing-Acton MP and Tory Housing and Planning Minister, piloted through the British Parliament “Statutory Instrument No. 627, The Housing (Right to Manage) Regulations 1994”.
The period 1992 – 2013, saw three studies (by Price Waterhouse Coopers, Oxford Brookes University and Urban Forum/University of York) all fully endorsing the RTM as the way to govern council-owned residential estates and blocks - see two examples: www.watmos.org.uk & www.leathermarketjmb.org.uk.
In 2002 the Tony Blair-led Labour Government extended the RTM regime to residential blocks & estates in the private sector (www.leaseholdknowledge.com & www.rtmf.org). This was initiated by MPs Frank Dobson and Nick Raynsford who hailed the RTM '... end to feudalism' (There is as yet no academic study of the apparent transformative impact collaboration between the two RTM regimes could have on both the Co-operative and 'Small Is Beautiful' movements).
<HOUSING MANAGEMENT CO-OPERATIVES>
However, coming right up to date, during this 2014-2017 period, the 1994 RTM statute has had two major boosts in LB Ealing: (i) residents of South Acton Estate registered a stunning 83% majority vote in favour of setting up their own housing management co-op (see below). Then (ii), from Ealing Town Hall itself, an officially designated Scrutiny Review Panel (composed of 13 cross-party Council Members) has crafted a series of imaginative recommendations for council action on co-operative enterprises in the borough. Three proposals are directly aimed at the RTM. "The council should: (a) be proactive in ... the development of tenant/resident management co-operatives (across) its social housing estates ... (b) actively promote the development of TMOs at the start of all regeneration projects ... and (c) Ward Forums ... to promote TMOs in the borough"
Music to the ears of Co-operatives UK? A homage to Municipal Dreams? (ref footnote 7 below)
Our Membership is Our Wealth, Strength, Power
SARAG’s membership is open to all residents of South Acton Estate:
secure tenants and non-secure/temporary tenants
assured tenants of housing associations
leaseholders & freeholders
tenants of leaseholders/freeholders; shared ownership tenants
Associate membership is open to local non-estate residents who subscribe to SARAG’s aims.
SARAG has demonstrated that unity is strength – by coming together we have achieved!
SARAG is strengthened by the diversity of the community it represents
<Human RIGHT TO RESPECT, BEAUTY, DIGNITY>
We oppose all discrimination whether on grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, marriage/civil partnership, religion, age, disability, language;
all residents are equally valued & welcomed; entitled to respect, courtesy, dignity, beauty
the old and the young – from nurseries to sheltered housing & residential care;
from every corner of the globe – and all five continents;
from whatever type of tenure (tenants, leaseholders, freeholders);
workers, and job-seekers;
the able-bodied and those with disabilities of any kind;
whether financially self-sufficient or in receipt of benefits;
newcomers and old-timers; single people and families;
we all pay for services - whether as rent, service charge or council tax;
we all pay, out of our own financial resources or through benefits to which we are entitled;
we all suffer both collectively and individually if in recipt of poor services;
SARAG understands that there is much more to unite us than there is to divide us
Milestones, Collaborations, Seminal Projects 1997 – Present
The core of SARAG’s work is its 19 years of action research, learning & campaigning aimed at resident governance of South Acton and other residential council blocks and estates in Ealing. Campaigning is heritage-guided and inspired by the William Morris’ clarion call ‘to stave off decay by daily care’ [8].
<HABITAT STEWARDSHIP FOR SUSTAINABILITY>
The South Acton/Southfield Neighbourhood ('Acorn Neighbauhaus') is a mix of residential and commercial estates, including the large, 30-hectare multi landlord, heritage-rich South Acton Housing Estate, majority owned by Ealing Council and represented since 1997 by the Cabe/Arts & Business Award-winning SARAG.
The guiding mission of SARAG is residents taking collective ownership of the governance of SAN. Clause 3.2 of SARAG’s constitution mandates it to: “promote, and become directly involved in the regeneration of the South Acton estate, in particular, and the Ealing area as a whole in partnership with the London Borough of Ealing …”. To this end SARAG pursues the RTM option as a key investment in equitably sustainable regeneration through self-governed habitat stewardship.
Almost everything that SARAG does is action-researched. Within the national culture, council housing estates are considered places with wrongs that need fixing ‘by the powers that be’. Challenged to embrace Dr Booker T Washington's "Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are" philosophy, and to always start not with what is wrong, but with what's right about the place where they live, South Actonians have emerged a community of resilient, audacious, confident and exemplary doers! This is a prolonged, aesthetics driven rebellion against the status quo. The Chinese have a gem for what is sought: Pendeng Huli = Equality and Mutual Benefit
<PARTICIPATIVE REGENERATION>
Thus, in 2010 SARAG’s strictly residents-only Management Collective established the South Acton Community Builders Co-operative Ltd (SCBC) to pilot the 1994 statutory Right to Manage (www.nftmo.com & www.cch.coop) as a high value investment in sustainable habitat stewardship and heritage–led participative neighbourhood economic regeneration. The aim is to guide replication of the South Acton pilot elsewhere as a contribution to community empowerment generally and specifically to play a key role in the work of Co-operatives UK (www.uk.coop), geared as it is to healing the bruises recently suffered by the British sector of the international co-operative movement.
So, what if with the RTM, Britain’s 2.5 million council tenants could be mobilised to play a vanguard role in restoring ‘the co-op’ to its former glory? What if, indeed …
SARAG at a glance - 1997 to Present
2012 -- 2013: Business in the Community (BITC - www.bitc.org.uk) assesses SARAG as a candidate eligible for engagement with Pimp My Cause (www.pimpmycause.org) and for mentoring by Cambridge Education, a division of Mott MacDonald, the global employee-owned multidisciplinary consultancy (www.mottmac.com)
2008 - Present: A Ruskinian Walk Through Shared Heritage, a very popular feature of the Open House London annual architectural celebration. The walk starts at the Richard Rogers designed, award-winning Chiswick Park Business Estate followed by a tour through the 19th, 20th and 21st architecture and 'green lungs' of South Acton. Everyone's walking about it! - www.open-city.org.uk
2005: SARAG wins Artists & Places PROJECT Award for Engaging Architects / Artists in the Built Environment (www.publicartonline.org.uk/pasw/project/awards/england/south_acton.php) Scheme Manager, Alastair Snow (Snow Art: www.snowart.co.uk)
2004 - 2005: SARAG invites English Heritage to conduct 'S A Historic Environment Characterisation' (RIBA Publishing, 2017 - ISBN 978-1-85946-631-5) and contributes to 'South Acton: The Management Of The Public Realm' by Campbell Tickell (www.campbelltickell,com)
2003: Architects-in-Residents – SARAG’s Urban Design Study by a University of Westminster team: Architects Bill Erickson, David Seex and Bartlett schooled Professor Marion Roberts. A project grant-aided by the British government’s Neighbourhood Renewal Unit with budget administered by the Ealing CVS
<ACTION RESEARCH & LEARNING>
A SARAG early-win: Founding South Acton Skills and Arts Collaborative (SASAC) - closed 2016
Action Acton: Founding Member Board of Management (www.actionacton.com)
Alliance with Ealing Family Housing Association on Harbour Lights/Barrie House Project – signal contribution to creation of Catalyst Communities Housing Association (www.chg.org.uk)
Aided the re-launch of Acton Community Forum (www.actonforum.org)
Membership LBE’s Borough Housing Policy Partnership
Action Research & Learning Sessions @ Change Base – second Monday of every month
Partnering with the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) on an annual Philosophy Course
Applied Gandhian method to save LBE’s total housing asset from ‘Large-Scale … Transfer’
Membership,South Acton Strategic Board & Ealing Local Strategic Partnership
SARAG in architectural groundings, past and present: with Charles Campion; Ann Hodges; Architecture Foundation; James Monaghan; Commonwealth Assn of Architects; Ben Eastop; Peter Barber, representing the Glass House Trust; Lord Rogers @ Trafford Hall; Urban Design Group; Fluid; ECD Architects; Proctor & Matthews; Llowarch Llowarch; Urbed; UoW Team; and Adrian Cook of Chiswick House
Open City: ‘A Ruskinian Walk Through Shared Heritage’ (www.opencity.com) annually
Road-Testing 'Community Gateway' which Ealing lost to Preston (www.cih.org/gateway)
With Ealing Civic Society’s support, lobbied LB Ealing for £50,000 to trigger ‘percent-for-art’
Author of widely consulted/quoted responses to planning applications made to LB Ealing
Designated Neighbourhood to Neighbourhood Learning Guide TMO (www.nftmo.com)
Founding of South Acton Community Builders Co-operative Ltd (SCBC); becoming RTM Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) Contractor to Ealing Council in 2015; piloting Each One Teach One (Neighbourhood to Neighbourhood Learning) RTM Programme
Footnotes:
[1] The RTM statute of 1994 was designed to boost to the growth of Tenant Management Organisations (TMOs) However, it was not given the kind of fanfare advertising accorded the 1980 start-up of the Right to Buy (RTB). The NFTMO laments that the RTM might be 'Britain's Best Kept Housing Secret'
[2] "Participative regeneration intensifies the urgency of thinking ... (it) presuposes knowledge of places as well as processes ... all who have to participate need better knowledge, each of the other ... popular as well as professional understandings" -- Architectural Historian Peter Guillery - (South Acton: Historic Environment Characterisation Study / English Heritage)
[3] "It is easier to rebuild communities around the best of what you've got than starting afresh" - Charles Wagner, Head of Regeneration , English Heritage (Regeneration & Renewal, March 17 2006)
[4] Thanks to a campaign led by residentts of South Acton Estate in 2000, LB Ealing is one of Britain's local authorities with 'Retained Council Housing'. This is therefore a borough with potential for a lead role in community owned governance and co-operative design / redesign for sustainability
[5] "In the modern world ... it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can sell what you create" (David Ogilvy) In other words, "It don't mean a thing , if it ain't got ... swing" - Duke Ellington
[6] "Almost the worst house if wisely governed, is better than ever so costly a one ill-managed" (Octavia Hill) "The wellbeing of the whole community is addressed when you attend to the spaces in between" -- Architectural Press
[7] See www.municipaldreams.wordpress.com for insightful reviews of council sector residential architecture
[8] "Have nothing in your (shared-home) that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful" (William Morris) "I like the idea that things (are) done in the most minimalist fashion" - South Actonian Patrick Joseph Caulfield (1936 - 2005), Royal Academician, Graphic Designer, Print Maker, Painter (www.alancristea.com / www.tate.org.uk / www.pallant.org.uk)
::This registration by Ima Freeman seeks to invite expressions of interest(EOI) in a daring challenge. It is an invitation to all PMC registered professionals and students; a call for collaboration in this SARAG Guide TMO / RTM Programme designed as an 'online residency' devoted to habit stewardship for sustaunability. To participate location is not an issue. Those who accept the challenge will be encouraged to also join the Institution of Sustainability Professionals (www.webisp.org/membership) and/or the Twentieth Century Society (www.c20society.org.uk). Question(s)? Just email: committee@sarag.org or tmo@scbc,coop
'When we build, let us think that we build for ever' -- John Ruskin