Paulette Singer is co-founder of the Clitterhouse Farm Project, which was started by local residents within five minutes walk of Clitterhouse Farm in 2013 to protect a set of historic farm buildings in this part of Barnet, North London, from demolition.
The Clitterhouse Farm Project is working Barnet Council and local developers to secure the site and turn it into a community hub with gardens, workshops and a cafe, in parallel with the sweeping top-down regeneration going on in this north London borough under the Brent Cross Cricklewood Regeneration plan around the site of the old Brent Cross Shopping Centre.
How did the project start?
We started the project six years ago, four residents came together. We didn’t know what to do with the buildings but we knew we wanted to turn them over to community use, probably for the arts.
Initially, we didn’t realise that the farm buildings were earmarked for demolition under the Brent Cross Cricklewood Regeneration programme. The developer, Hammersons, wanted to redevelop the traditional shopping centre, which is full of empty units. The council granted permission but asked what they would do for the local community. We saved the farm within about six months of starting the project and in 2015 we solidified as a private company with an eye on the self-sustaining community business model, which has stuck with us.
Coronavirus may have clobbered our food supplies and exposed the flaws of global supply chains, but it also helped present an alternative new answer https://t.co/j5gVM3uBGt
— WIRED UK (@WiredUK) June 19, 2020
Over the last five or six years we have raised half a million in increments, including £100,000 last year to build a community cafe. But we are still 95 per cent volunteer-powered.
We have been working on the social infrastructure of the site and what we can do to support micro-businesses in the area. A £10,000 area committee grant in 2016 helped us open the Kiosk Cafe in 2018. It was a foot on the site. We had no planning permission to be on the site, but we started squatting on the site with consent, as Barnet Council had partly funded the cafe.
The council is struggling to respond to a crisis – and then a load of hard-working, passionate local people have set up the most incredible mutual aid system
The tipping point came with the viability study and we were offered a match fund of £1 million from the mayor. That fast tracked conversations with the council – until that point, the council never really listened to us, we weren’t in their priorities – we were a tiny carbuncle on their regeneration scheme.
Then in February, right before the lockdown we had that offer of £1 million and our viability report and the developers, Argent, were talking about regeneration section 106 funding so the whole scheme could be done. Suddenly it was an absolute celebration.
What has happened with coronavirus?
We were due to have a meeting with developers in May but everything has ground to a halt. Having said that, the farm garden has grown exponentially and we have been keeping volunteers engaged with a rota. There are jobs and people can come in and get on with it.
Of course, everyone has got really into gardening. We used to sell plants at events, but we’re not really a nursery. Now, we’re really selling plants. A local shop has offered to sell them for us too, creating partnership opportunities.
We’ve dropped lots of lovely plants to Munro’s Store. Different types of mint, strawflowers, potato sacks, gaura and calendula. Don’t miss out. @NW2_RA @FOGPark pic.twitter.com/riIyhNq7LW
— Clitterhouse Farm, Cricklewood (@clitterhouse) June 9, 2020
Through the mutual aid response we have collaborated on an emergency food hub. It’s an interesting triangulation with the farm as a recognised community business. The council is struggling to respond to a crisis, with the logistics of who they need to furlough, and then a load of hard-working, passionate local people have set up the most incredible mutual aid system.
How does the mutual aid system work?
This group spans about six wards and has helped over 1300 people in four weeks, covering prescriptions, shopping, talking to people facing loneliness and now the food hub which has become a collaboration between us and mutual aid and Stone Grove, which is another community trust, plus two churches called Jesus House and Claremont Free Church. The council has deep cleaned a community hall for us to use, and some local churches have given us their liability insurance. I’m blown away by seeing people organise so efficiently.
What tech does the mutual aid system use?
At mutualaid.com you can put in your postcode and see pindrops around your area. You can request to be a helper, where you are welcomed to an onboarding Whatsapp group, and then you can be put into teams: a shopping team, a pharmacy team, a marketing team. It’s a very sophisticated system and it means we have been able to mobilise people to help.
How do you make the Clitterhouse Farm Project work financially?
We’re in a unique situation because we’re not officially in the building, so we don’t pay rent and we’re all volunteers. But all the funding that might have gone to use has been turned into crisis response focussing on larger organisations: a big charity like Age UK for example might be able to get Lottery Funding, or Young Foundation and local council funding. We don’t have the staff, we don’t have the resources: we’re basically doing it alone. Which we always have done, but we were hoping this year we were going to start generating our own income.
Big and beautiful Greek Basil £3.50. The scent is delicious. We are not harvesting ours for cooking. We are just enjoying looking at & smelling these balls of perfume. pic.twitter.com/vrk2YKHHKT
— Clitterhouse Farm, Cricklewood (@clitterhouse) May 28, 2020
What’s your relationship been like with the council during the mutual aid work?
Traditional mutual aid groups typically don’t want to work with the council, but our mutual aid group has been referring people to the council. What’s happened is that things that have been set up haven’t worked, so people referred to the council are coming to us instead.
The council is interested in longer-term conversations now
In May, two strategy people from the council met up with me and Jai, who originally set up UK Mutual Aid, and we were able to explain to them how we safeguard, and they were really open and receptive and asked what they could do for us.
They offered to DBS check our volunteers, they got a team onto a delivery of industrial fridges. Then, the conversation shifted to: “Does this have legs? Do we think it will exist beyond the crisis?” They are interested in these longer-term conversations now, which is exciting. Unfortunately, it’s taken a pandemic.
