A zip wire, a sunken theatre, food stalls, growing spaces, fountains, shade.
These are just some ideas Anfield residents have for a recreational ground at the end of a row of boarded up houses.
They met at the other end of the row above Homebaked, a community bakery, on October 9. Together they visited the rec, which is occupied by massive yellow diggers. A single, solitary swing was visible behind a locked gate.
A glorious day in Liverpool for @homebakedclt community engagement day pic.twitter.com/nNVUm3clkl
— Far Nearer (@far_nearer) October 9, 2016
“See that?” said Carolyn Starr, project manager at Homebaked, pointing to a massive “Making Anfield Brighter” sign on stilts at the entrance to the rec. “What they’ve really done is fence off a green space where kids played every day to make it into a building site. Where do those kids go now?”
Homebaked is an accidental bakery. When housing activists occupied the space of the century-old Mitchell’s Bakery in Anfield, they were asked so often if they were reopening the bakery that eventually they did.
Breakfast with Luca @HomebakedA, a bakery with a plan to rebuild its whole street @homebakedclt @community_land pic.twitter.com/7FCMgAFNAf
— Far Nearer (@far_nearer) October 10, 2016
Now Homebaked is the only full time business on a street that has been earmarked for demolition under housing renewal schemes for years.
But Homebaked wants to do more than serve pies on match days. The people behind the bakery have plans to turn the whole, condemned block into affordable flats, communal areas, art spaces and more.
“A whole generation has grown up with few nice places to go. Some kids lived for years in the only occupied house in a street full of derelicts,” Carolyn said.
They dream big about gardens and play areas, even though it could be some time before the diggers are gone and the land is returned to public use.
But Homebaked aren’t waiting. They plan to use the small green space that’s left to show what’s possible while the building goes on around them.
As it says on the sign outside the bakery:
“Brick by brick, loaf by loaf, we build ourselves.”
