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7. Friends and Neighbours, Neath Port Talbot, Wales
It all started with a party on a chilly autumnal evening.
Emma Knight, then a new arrival on Ethel Street, had thought it would be a great idea if she organised a Halloween party. She had married into the area and wanted to get to know her neighbours better.
“The reaction wasn’t good,” she says. “Everyone said it wouldn’t work. They thought people did not want to get involved in community events.” The street – two rows of stone terraced houses in Neath, south Wales – had lost its heart, its spirit. “It was a down-in-the-dumps sort of place. There wasn’t much life and energy.”
Emma, a full-time carer, ploughed on and organised the party anyway. “We didn’t know if anyone would turn up,” she says. “It was a bitter cold night and 50 people came. Everyone was in full fancy dress. It was a brilliant night.”
That was in 2008. Since then the street has turned into a vibrant, brilliant community. After the success of the Halloween party, the Ethel Street events committee was founded. That was short-lived only because it became clear there was so much more to be done than simply run social events.
It evolved into the Ethel Street Friends and Neighbours Community Alliance (Fan) and now has a successful junior arm, Mini Fans. “The street feels like a family now,” says Emma. “People feel safe, there are connections between people.”
Young and old work together, not just on parties – although they still hold plenty of those – but on organising activities ranging from fitness clubs that keep the elderly sprightly, to circus groups and drumming workshops which the youngsters like. There are street cleans, bulk-buying schemes and a weekly community raffle.
Best of all, perhaps, is a new community garden that was created, with the help of Keep Wales Tidy, out of what was a grubby, brambly alleyway haunted by drug addicts and thieves who used it as an access routes into gardens, houses and the grounds of the neighbouring cardboard factory.
Ingenious uses of bits and pieces found in skips – and on corners of roads less cared for than Ethel Street – are abundant in the garden. A greenhouse has been built out of plastic bottles; herbs grow out of pallets packed with soil and carrots have flourished in discarded plastic watertanks. Apple, plum and cherry trees erupt out of old tubs that were found in skips. Two happy cats – Waffle and Fudge – have made the garden their home and are looked after by the street as much as their real owners.
Emma’s mother-in-law, Irene Knight, made the Guardian a cup of tea and, on one of the benches in the garden, explained the rise, fall and rise again of Ethel Street.
Irene has lived here since she was born. She says that originally everyone knew everyone else – and many worked together in the cardboard factory. “But over time it changed. Families moved out, others came in who didn’t work around here.” Some houses were bought by private landlords who moved tenants in and out. There was no continuity. The old-timers still got together, but in smaller groups behind closed doors. “There was no atmosphere,” says Irene. “The community spirit had gone.”
It may also be that the loss of this spirit coincided with the steady decline of Neath over the past 30 or 40 years. Once a bustling market town, Neath expanded during the industrial revolution. The town and its environs grew hugely through the iron, steel and coal industries.
As in many of the south Wales valleys, the loss of heavy industry in the late 20th century led to poverty, deprivation and a loss of a sense of identity. It is the sort of place that, in general, bright young people want to leave.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the percentage of people economically active in Neath is smaller than the Welsh and British equivalents – 74% against 75% and 77%. Many of those who do work are in lower-paid jobs. Average gross weekly pay in Neath is £451 compared with £477 for Wales as a whole and £518 for Great Britain.
Of those who are not economically active 38% are long-term sick, against 22% for the whole of Britain. Male mortality rates (a statistic that looks at the number of deaths in a given population in a given time) in Neath Port Talbot are the sixth highest in 348 council areas in England and Wales.
Local health bosses explain that premature death is linked to poverty and deprivation. They point out that the main causes of premature death are cardiovascular disease, cancers and respiratory disease – illnesses experienced more commonly in deprived communities and, in part, due to risk factors such as smoking, obesity and lack of exercise.
In Ethel Street, Fan is tackling some of these social issues. Rather than paying for outside coaches, some of the locals have accessed Lottery funding to train up as fitness instructors and run aerobics and Zumba classes. They use the profits to make healthy meals for the residents and for night outs, recently running a Samba night. And thanks to the community garden, youngsters are being taught about the benefits of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Global matters are also being addressed. Fan-organised events around WWF’s Earth Hour and Fairtrade days are also held. Car-free days (the street has a nasty kink in it that makes it a little hazardous to play in the middle of the road) have been run.
But the most important elements are the back-to-basics, grassroots, even mundane activities that take place in Ethel Street. While Irene Knight was giving the history of the street, Rita Nicholas was whitewashing her back wall. A pensioner, she could not reach the bottom bit so called over 18-year-old Joel Al-Hattab, who willingly helped.
Joel explains that he used to be shy. “I wouldn’t say anything to anybody,” he says. But he became involved in Fan and is now confident and open and studying at a college of art and design. He has won a Fan youth achievement award and leads the Mini Fans, passing on circus skills to youngsters that he himself learned in sessions staged through the organisation.
“I’ve got so much out of being involved. There’s not that much to do in Neath, which is why some young people get into trouble,” says Joel. “Fan has given me some direction to my life.” He is confident enough to flirt with another of the residents who has lived here for her entire life – Megan Sparkes, 69. Megan used to play as a child in the alley where the garden is now based. “I think the scheme has brought together the older and younger people. It’s good to see,” she says.
There is no concrete evidence that the scheme has reduced crime. Actually the figures may have risen slightly because Fan flags up everything of concern. But there is no doubt that people feel more secure. “I certainly feel safer,” says Megan. “I feel everyone is looking out for each other.”
The leading lights of Fan tend to be women rather than men and one noticeable feature is that the street has done it for itself without too much help from local political movers and shakers. But its efforts have been noticed regionally and nationally. The Big Lunch – the Eden Project’s community day – recognised its successes with an award presented by the Duchess of Cornwall at Clarence House in London. Irene Knight is up for the neighbour of the year award from the regeneration body New Swansea Bay.
But it is not just about that sort of recognition, the residents say. It is about doing right by their neighbours and the street.
At some Fan events, the team sets up a 2-metre tall “wish tree” made of papier-mache and fencing wire. Residents and visitors are invited to write down their wishes and pin them on to the tree’s sprawling branches. The most common wish is made by those not lucky enough to live here. They wish they did.
So far in the series ...
1. The community supported farm
2. The bike repair co-operative
3. The community garden centre
5. The meat-rearing collective
This article is part of the Live Better Community Project month. In September, we are showcasing 17 community projects from around the UK. On Wednesday 24 September, we will ask you to vote for your favourite project. The project with the most votes will be awarded £1,000 of funding, and two runners-up will each receive funding of £500. One voter chosen at random will receive £150 worth of gift vouchers for Nigel’s Eco Store. Terms and conditions here.
With thanks to: 10:10; FOE; Project Dirt; Neighbourly; UK Community Foundations; Groundwork; Business in the Community; Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens; the Prince’s Trust; Garden Organic; the Royal Horticultural Society; the RSPB; Keep Wales Tidy; The Wildlife Trusts; and Mind.
Interested in finding out more about how you can live better? Take a look at this month’s Live Better challenge here.
The Live Better Challenge is funded by Unilever; its focus is sustainable living. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here.
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