Community Hub tackling Climate Change
2nd May 2027
There's this new place, sprung up near to where I live. I say place because I'm not, yet, sure how to describe it. So, I'll try by telling you about a recent visit. It hasn't been without its controversy as many Exmouth residents were adamant that in this difficult, cost of living crisis the only viable option was the proposal by Aldi to build a store there. Conversations got very heated. I think people just couldn't imagine anything different and as there weren't many examples, certainly nothing local, it was hard for people to see that food could come to them in a different way and still be affordable.
Anyway, I digress, the place I want to tell you about is Goodmore's Farm Community Hub. As you can see, it actually has a name but during the proposal and planning stage this name proved problematic as, like I said, there wasn't a clear picture or model in people's mind of what a community hub is or might be. Many just thought, quite rightly, of their financial situation and felt a low cost supermarket was the only answer.
Yesterday morning, I grabbed my reusable bags and headed out the door. Walking to the main road, I noticed how busy it is since the road has been extended - essentially creating a by-pass for the town, running behind my house and past many other residential houses. My heart sunk, it feels like such the wrong decision to have built this road when we so desperately need to convert to sustainable ways of travelling. I tried to focus on the positive as I waited at one of the newly installed road crossings, there used to be none it’s now difficult to cross without them. I wander to the junction and turn into the community hub. What immediately strikes me is the lack of cars, in sharp contrast to the road behind me. Instead there are rows of bike racks and a few people, like me, walking around. The building has been beautifully designed to blend into the landscape. Previously a field, which has been developed with housing to one side in a conventional manner, it really is a triumph that local people lobbied and fund-raised for this area to be fundamentally different. I take a moment to look around outside. Next to the building is the beginnings of what will become a community food forest. The trees, that were planted in the winter, have come on well with green leaves poking out above the tree guards. It’ll be a few years until it becomes productive but then I will be able to come along and pick apples, plums, pears or cherries depending what is in season, as anyone will - all for free. Such an amazing resource which responds directly to both the climate and the cost of living crisis. It will provide healthy food and lock in carbon. The plan is to allow wild plants to grow between the trees enhancing local biodiversity. It’s going to be so good to watch this develop and, of course, eat the first fruits when they are available.
Back to the purpose of my visit, I’m actually here to do my food shop so I head inside the building and take a look around. There is a waft of freshly baked bread as I enter. My stomach starts to gurgle and I head straight to the bakery. Local business Shaldon bakery have successfully been opening shop after shop in the South West. Starting, as the name suggest, in Shaldon and spreading to Teignmouth, Newton Abbot, Budleigh Salterton, Exmouth town centre and now this site on the edge of town. All their bread is made on site and it’s hard to choose what to buy. I settle on a sun-dried tomato focaccia for lunch today and a white loaf that will be good for packed lunches. I take out my two reusable cloth bread bags and the shop assistant pops them straight in. I pay and head to pick up my vegetable box.
I’ve been buying from Riverford for several years now and I’ve opted for the cheaper option of picking up my weekly box from this hub rather than getting it delivered as I used to previously. I usually opt for the 100% UK box in which lots of the produce has been grown on nearby Devon farms. I unpack the box straight into my reusable shopping bags and hand the box straight back to be reused.
My meals this week will be based around the vegetables in this box and I start wondering what I might create with asparagus, potatoes, shitake mushrooms and spinach. Now I know what you’re thinking, how can this type of produce be available for those who need an Aldi store because of it’s cheap food? And you’d be right these products aren’t particularly cheap. The bread is a lot more than Aldi and the vegetables, although good value bought as a veg box, really don’t compare to the Aldi deals on fruit and veg. Of course, it’s not really comparable: beautiful bread, made and baked how bread should be rather than produced in a factory and organic vegetables compared to plastic wrapped, pesticide sprayed produce which is available in Aldi. People can still buy this in the Lidl store that is well established at the other end of this very street. However, how are people going to be able to afford this lovely produce in the community hub? I think the answer is that so much of the other products available are actually free! Obviously, there will be the food forest once it has had time to grow. There is also all the ‘share stalls’ which are dotted around the building. There are free books, clothes, seeds, plants and a community fridge. All the items are donated by people who don’t want them. This might be a book they’ve read, an item of clothing their children have grown out of, seeds collected from their garden or plants they don’t need. I spend ages looking, wishing I’d picked up my vegetables last as those potatoes start to weigh down on my shoulders! I pick up a couple of novels (one for me and one for my 18 year old daughter), a new to me jacket, some beetroot and sweetcorn seeds and a tray of lettuce – all for free! Now I wish I’d bought some kind of shoppers trolley with me (maybe next time) and decide to head to the community café to get some nourishment before I head off.
Overlooking the newly planted food forest this café is so inviting. There are tables if you want to sit alone and others labelled ‘chatty tables’ where people can sit with others - people they probably don’t know - and have a conversation. To be honest, I’m not in a very talkative mood so I opt for a small table by the window and sip my tea with oat milk and my plant-based cookie. So cheap, a fraction of what you would normally spend as there is no need for this café to make a profit, they just need to cover costs. It’s run by volunteers and I already start wondering if I might be able to offer a few hours when my youngest fledges the nest for university in September. While I’m soaking up the atmosphere, it feels so restorative for people to be able to come here and socialise if they want, I notice a poster for a bus service and remember there is a bus that serves the area, replacing the need for everyone to drive their car here and meaning what would have been a carpark is actually the site of the food forest. I might hop on the bus home, if all of the things I’ve got prove to be too heavy! There are also posters advertising the library of things which I haven’t yet looked at. It’s exactly what it says, a library of things rather than books. Again, it's free, run by volunteers and with donated items. There literally is everything except the kitchen sink from DIY tools to camping equipment and even a chocolate fondue! Definitely somewhere I’m going to use in the future. It will eventually save me money as so many of the items in my house, such as drills and my paper shredder, will not need replacing once they no longer work. I’ll just borrow them instead.
I also notice there is a repair area open at the weekends, where you can bring along electrical items, clothes etc which need repairing. There is also a workshop next week in which you can learn some basic repairs. Again, all for free run by volunteers, some of whom are probably retired people but I know the idea of this hub is to cut people’s expenses so much that as a community we don’t have to work in an employed role as much and can instead have time to volunteer our skills alongside our paid work. It’s an ambitious vision but one I love! We are currently so locked into the capitalist system, with people having to work so hard for the things they need to buy. Could this actually be the answer to the wage-slave lifestyle? As a population, we are consuming so much stuff that we are having to work so hard for and it's directly impacting on the planet, making it less habitable for humans and so many of the other species we share it with. I guess time will tell, but I am feeling hopeful!
Before I leave, I visit the main food shop area. It’s a food cooperative which looks like a regular retail store (though nicer) and with a distinct lack of plastic! Members of the public have the option of purchasing a membership (on a sliding scale) that will yield discounted prices on food, as well as a vote on decisions. This sounds like my cup of tea! I take a look around and am really impressed with the range of products and the prices. Again, this is run entirely by volunteers, not to make a profit but to provide healthy food to my community at an affordable price. The co-op buys a lot of it in huge 25kg bulk paper bags which are then displayed in large jars and customers just buy what they need. Customers are encouraged to bring their own bags or containers but, as I forgot today, I buy some rice and pasta in the paper bags available. These cost a few pence, so note to self to bring my own next time to save on money and planetary resources. I will just keep some jam jars once they are empty, wash them out and bring them.
So, laden down I head back to the main road and decide the bus is the best option to get home. There is one every 10 minutes and I stand next to a few other people waiting for the next one. Suddenly I feel chatty, after all the inspiring things I’ve seen. It feels like a very different way to shop and, even, live. I chat to some of my fellow bus passengers and before I know it the bus is here! For a nominal fare (due to funding from the new government bus tax which is beginning to replace car tax) I get dropped near my door with a big smile on my face, a satisfied belly and a feeling of excitement to return to the community hub again soon – never have I felt like this when I’ve visited a supermarket!
Systems need to change, it can’t come quickly enough and the Goodmore's Farm Community Hub is a sustainable, affordable and enjoyable way to provide food for the community. Maybe one might spring up near to where you live soon. It’s time to stop accepting the same old, business as usual approaches. So, maybe when you get a flyer through the door for yet another supermarket you might do what the people of Exmouth did and demand something different.
The photo is actually of the amazing Gloucester Services. Unfortunately, I couldn't photograph Goodmore's Farm Community Hub as it only exists in my imagination. This piece of writing is a Thrutopian blog post set in the year 2027. It's a vision of how I can see humans getting through the climate and biodiversity crisis. I think this is a better way to live than how we are living now and would help towards keeping the planet habitable and build community at the same time. However, Aldi actually do want to build on this site and have put in an application for planning permission. This would be the complete opposite of my vision for a sustainable future. If you want to comment on the application go to the East Devon District Council's Planning Portal. The consultation expires on Wednesday 30th July 2025.
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I unpack my bag. Firstly, taking out and unrolling my yoga mat (my daughter's yoga mat as yoga is not something I do), place my journal and pen next to me and sit crossed-legged on my mat with my blanket covering my feet. Anna goes around the circle, with the invitation for people to pick a card, I guess it's a set of oracle cards. By mistake I take three instead of one! Embracing Change, The Power of Support and Grace. So apt.
I can very gratefully say, that I am now almost three years post hospital treatment for cancer. I’m healthy and I’m okay. I appear from the outside, perhaps, to be totally fine moving through life as before. However, this could not be further from the truth. Barely a day goes by when I don’t think about my cancer experience, often getting consumed by it. The thing that I’ve recently come to realise is that an illness, like this, is actually often initiatory. I have and I am going through a huge transformation, an initiation back into life and it looks like nothing’s happening from the outside. I have also found that there is little acknowledgement, understanding or support for this process. That’s not to say I’ve had no support, what it is to say, though, is that there has been no long term holding of my experience from the wider society. I haven’t been able to communicate this very well thus far, for I only just realised it myself thanks to reading ‘Descent and Rising’ by Carly Mountain. In this book Carly cleverly uses the ancient myth of Inanna alongside modern day real-life stories to show the descent into the underworld often felt by people including those who have illnesses. Up until this point, I simply thought something was wrong with me, that I was failing to recover emotionally.
So, this daily onslaught of emotions manifests for me in many ways. Mostly, it takes a lot of headspace, meaning not a lot left for anything else. It also takes a lot of energy as I try to hold the tension (a phrase I’m so grateful for from ‘Wild Power’ by Alexandra Pope and Sjarnie Hugo Wurlitzer) as I try to hold the enormity of my feelings, feel them, not shy away from them, acknowledge them and behold myself alongside functioning as a human being and as a mother. Emotions of anger, grief, sadness and guilt flow through me on a regular basis. I try to think of them as boats passing me on a river (a technique I learnt by attending a course run by Force Cancer Charity); I know they will go past and I won’t feel like that forever. But the boats can turn round quite quickly and sail back up the river, demanding constant attention.
Thankfully, my cancer-related fatigue stopped around the end of 2021, this level of fatigue is another thing not widely understood in our society. It was debilitating making it almost impossible to look after my children. However, the fatigue was replaced with being tired almost all the time. There’s a difference in that the fatigue never got better with rest but the tiredness can sometimes be eased. Fast forward to June 2023 (when I wrote this blog post), quite a considerable time has passed but I’m tired a lot of the time. I can’t plan much, I wouldn’t feel safe driving for more than about 30 minutes, I have to base my days around the essential tasks and by that I simply mean ensuring we are fed and clothed. In between this I rest.
A hard learnt thing is rest. It also takes up so much energy to deconstruct the capitalist norms I’ve internalised about my value being linked to productivity. Rest is not simply stopping, the mind needs to be stilled as well. This relearning to rest takes a lot of headspace and energy. I’ve recently read ‘Wise Power’, another excellent book by Alexandra Pope and Sjarnie Hugo Wurlitzer and learnt the term ‘snudging’ which is what I now base my days around, doing just enough to get by (whilst being aware I miss people’s birthdays, lose touch with friends, stay partly in the underworld as there isn’t enough energy to emerge and this in turn creates grief which takes so much energy). This is hard, extremely painful, overwhelming and lonely work for me, however, I now can see it as an initiatory process with gold at the end. I’ve stripped back so much of my life as I entered the underworld and I’m now slowly finding new, boundaried ways of emerging.
I feel, to be honest, that I’ll rise just in time to hit another initiatory process, menopause. At aged 44 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, menopause seemed a long way off, not even remotely on the horizon, now aged 47 it’s within sight. Maybe, I’m already in it (I’m taking oestrogen suppressing medication so I could be), almost everything written in ‘Wise Power’ a book about menopause sings to my experience but this could be because the initiation I'm experiencing is archetypally like other initiatory processes. I would say, for sure, that trying to recover emotionally from cancer merges with perimenopause, a lack of energy having my oestrogen (medically) supressed along with parenting without a village. It’s a difficult mix. However, on the surface, in some respects, I carry on with everyday life: I wash the clothes, hang them to dry, do some work (though not what I was doing before), pick up the kids, make packed lunches, clear up after dinner etc. But this is just snudging, doing enough to get by whilst trying to trust that being in this unknown is okay, that I will fully emerge back into life, a new life, a much more authentic life with more ease and joy. I get glimpses but, of course, it’s not the linear process we have been taught to expect.
This is hidden work going on, not just for me, but for
others experiencing illness, the initiation into parenthood, menopause and
other initiatory processes. But in the hiding, wider understanding is lost. But
in the telling, the teller/the sharer, puts their vulnerability in the hands of
others, unless they can simply behold themselves. So, that leaves me to enquire
can I see myself clearly enough, can I say this is who I am and how I am for
the greater good of the wider society gaining some understanding and for me
being my authentic self? Or do I just leave this as a file on my laptop,
gathering metaphorical dust as the risk of being vulnerable is too big right
now?
Well, the dust gathered for six months, I recently received a PTSD diagnosis related to my cancer experience and I snudged my way to this point. I decided to share this now in case anyone else is in need of the strategy of snudging but also to say this is me, this is how it is. This is my truth.
Are you like me, obsessively watching your smart meter and despairing at how quickly the cost of electricity and gas goes up throughout the day? Energy prices rising (despite the energy price cap they are still likely to be more than last winter) and the mercury dropping certainly doesn’t help. With a long time to wait until the balmy (or at least warmer) days of summer coupled with the cost of living crisis, how can we keep warm without breaking the bank?
Sitting here on a chilly November morning with no heating currently on in my house, one easy, and I know a bit obvious tip, is to dress warmly. Layers really help in trapping air and insulating your body. I also have a blanket to hand and will pop that over me when I’m stationary, maybe watching TV or whilst working from home. It makes sense, to heat yourself first, rather than trying to heat whole rooms or houses. In addition to layers of clothing and blankets, hot water bottles, hand warmers and electric blankets can all keep you toasty and cosy when you are relaxing, or perhaps like me, working from home.
This, of course, is not enough but is a starting point. Once you put your central heating on, the cost to you and our planet in terms of carbon emissions really ramps up. So, what’s the most energy efficient way to run your heating? Firstly, turn the thermostat down! The average is set at 23°C which is actually the temperature of a warm summers day; T-shirt weather in fact. For every degree you turn your thermostat down you should reduce your bills by about 10%. You probably won’t even notice a degree difference in terms of temperature. For some people, who are less mobile or unwell, they may need to keep the temperature higher but for many turning the thermostat down and adding a layer of clothing is possible.
Other really simple things include shutting doors. I am the door police in my household, forever asking for doors to be shut! It really makes a difference to the warmth of the room. Draught excluders placed at the bottom of doors help too. Simply make one with old tights, filled with worn out or odd socks (though you could just wear the socks, who cares if they’re odd?). Also, shutting your curtains when it’s dark is another free way to save energy.
So, you’ve warmed up yourself, turned down your thermostat and done some simple things to insulate your house and reduce draughts, what about how long to have your heating on? Again, this may vary depending on an individual’s health and mobility. However, if you are active, getting up in the morning and going out to work or out and about it is more energy efficient to heat your home when you need it, i.e. when it is cold rather than to leave it on constantly on a lower setting. So, set it to go on in the morning, before you get up, then make sure it’s off before you leave the house. Then set it to come on in the evening but off at night when you are in bed. Obviously, there may be other times when you need it on, so pop it on to warm the house up if you need to but don’t leave it on constantly. My husband and I both work from home and we follow these ideas but still get cold when doing things like writing this newspaper column! We might put the heating on to take the chill off, say at lunchtime, drink lots of hot cups of tea and get up and do something active between the sedentary tasks sat at a computer.
These are just a few simple ideas. However, if they’re not enough and you are struggling to pay your energy bills you may be eligible for financial assistance. The government offers a range of benefits, grants, and schemes to help people pay their energy bills. You can find more information on the GOV.UK website.
As I’m writing I can feel my sock and slipper clad feet getting a bit chilly so time to shut the laptop, get up and get a warm snack. Mug of tomato soup anyone?
