Clare Owens (right) is co-founder and co-director of Squash Liverpool, a food, arts and environment focused community organisation in South Liverpool. Squash began as the idea of two friends, Clare and Becky Vipond (left), in 2002. It became an organisation in 2007 and in May 2018 moved into its own eco-building, co-designed by the community, on Windsor Street. The building is now home to a cafe, an ingredients shop, a gallery or multi-use space and kitchen garden.
In 2019, Squash was awarded best shop at the BBC Food and Farming Awards for its work in South Liverpool.
What is the point of the project?
The point is to get everyone in Liverpool 8 feeling good.
Our mission statement is growing great food, people and places in Liverpool 8 and beyond. We are interested in creating the spaces and places and the environment where people can have more control in their lives. It’s a lot about belonging and people having the space to be themselves.
“Embracing a food, arts and environmental focus, our big, hairy, audacious goal is that our neighbourhood becomes a fairer, more economically robust and happier sort of place to live, work and visit.”
When was the moment you decided to do this?
There was no one moment – it was a slow evolution. It has come from an interest in bottom-up social change that myself and Becky have felt the need for over many years.
Becky and I met doing youth work in our twenties. We are both social artists, interested in using the tools of art practice to work through challenges or opportunities in our community. We wanted this building to look better than anything in Liverpool because we wanted the best quality for our community. This space was five years in the making.
We bought this land from the council, it was a neglected piece of land, a dumping ground. It’s rare that you get the chance to have a new build but we made a good plan and proposal to Social Investment Business for a Community Asset grant and were successful.
A food hub in South Liverpool – 12 years in the making, waylaid by a devastating fire – just scooped best shop at the #bbcfoodawards. I visited the brilliant @squashliverpool to hear about how it is helping unemployed women start food businesses https://t.co/zGe3vPjxNN pic.twitter.com/vqvhDy5iu3
— Hazel Sheffield (@hazelsheffield) June 20, 2019
The building was co-designed by 30 local people including me (I live at the top of Windsor St). We worked with a fantastic local architect called Marianne Heaslip of URBED Architects. We wanted it to be light-filled, welcoming and inviting. We wanted a beautiful space and now we have one.
What’s next?
This building and the garden is part of a long-term plan called the 100 years street. We have developed the Grapes Community Food Garden since 2010. It’s in an old car park. In the pub garden we planted apples and pears – trees with a lifespan of 100 years.
This gave us the idea that through nature we could have a ‘slow’ project and people could get involved at a human pace.
Especially in an age of austerity where people are going hungry, we want to make a visible edible landscape, with food, art and design in the street plan.
What’s been your proudest moment?
How as a group of people we have been able to be resilient. It shows that working together in a loving and calm way you can effect social change.
Two people who have met here in the garden and are now best friends – that’s a highlight for me. It’s become its own cultural phenomenon.
Yes we’re community business leaders, but we very much want to hand it over to people, saying, ‘You run with it,” so that it continues for at least 100 years.
We had a great summer solstice yesterday…fire, breakfast, stretching, feet-washing, yoga, gong bath, pizza-making, music, conversation, massage, laughter, reflection….what a way to spend a beautiful midsummers day! #SummerSolstice #100yearstreet #friends #community #Litha pic.twitter.com/DXj3uaaBfV
— Squash (@squashliverpool) June 22, 2019
What’s been the most challenging thing?
The fire was really difficult, it knocked us back for a couple of years. [In October, 2015 there was a devastating fire just eight weeks before Squash had planned to open].
But what came out of that was that having such a big thing that everyone heard about meant that we met people who we didn’t know had hope for the new building and what it was bringing to the area.
They came round and they were really angry about the fire but wanted to help. In three weeks we raised over £25,000 to help with the rebuild – people came in with fivers and a local school held a disco to raise money for us.
This setback really did knock us. Several people in the community design team, suffered significant mental distress, thinking it was the end of the project.
What drove you to carry on?
On the day of the fire, a local gardener came and got me from home and by the time we had driven down the road I had already worked out that we were rebuilding and that nothing was going to stop us.
The [Liverpool] Echo were already here with a microphone and I said nothing was stopping us from going forward.
“When you have so many people involved, it’s not like you’re a commercial business on your own, it’s got everyone’s blood sweat and tears.”
So there was no way that was going to stop us.
What do people get wrong about South Liverpool?
These are the best people in the world. I came here as a student and I found the best place to live. The people are so friendly and open. I have brought my family up here.
When people come here from all over the UK, Europe and beyond they might have had a lazy, limited idea of Liverpool in general but they are blown away by the community spirit and the camaraderie, the creativity, the resilience and the intelligence of how people live. People support and help each other. I can see that happening every day. That’s why I love living here.
How do you fund what you do?
A mixed economy of grants, consultancy and enterprise – we are a community business so via trading. We do a lot of consultancy, we also have core funding from Esmée Fairbairn and Power to Change and Big Lottery have been very supportive.
We’re a year in and it’s working really well, we have been able to employ more local people than we thought and make more volunteer opportunities available than planned. We are filling gaps in the market for vegetarian catering. People know that we have strong food principles, so they seek us out to cater for conferences, parties, meetings etc.
We’re are already breaking even and making a small profit in the shop and cafe that goes back into the education program. With the arts program we will always need some support.
GP surgeries are recently very keen on what they’re calling social prescribing. We have been doing this for years in terms of training people at horticultural and cooking schemes.
Most people are looking for an inclusive and friendly experience, not just to be sent on a boot camp, or Slimming World. They want to be part of something and help develop their neighbourhood. We’re currently discussing potential funding to support our programmes with local GP’s.
What would you say to someone looking to do something similar?
Go for it. Get talking to people as soon as you can.
“Do it where you live, don’t do it where you don’t live.”
To feel part of something you have to know the place and the people. If you are just swanning in from another place it’s just not the same.
What does community mean to you?
It means trusting the people around me and opening myself up so they can trust me. It’s incredibly important to me that I live and work in my community – community is a fluid thing but at the heart of it is a potential togetherness.
