Following on from our Manifesto for Land Justice and two successful London Land Justice Fairs, we are holding this seminar series in order to explore further how we can practically develop a movement for land justice.
We have produced a London Land Justice Charter which highlights demands that would contribute to a transformation of land ownership towards the Commons. The number and variety of signatures to this charter indicate that there is support for coming together in a united and co-ordinated movement. However, there is much work to be done in order to make our embryonic movement effective.
These seminars will be held over the next few months, bringing together key campaigns and organisations, with the aim to see what we can learn from their particular struggles that would help us in our more general struggle for land justice.
February 10th: Defending community places from councils and developers
For various reasons, our communities have been decimated by local authorities’ policy of selling off land and public assets to private developers, such that land is used more for private profit than the common good. Many groups and campaigns have been fighting this. This seminar will look at some of these struggles, discussing what the key issues are, what worked, what didn’t, and what lessons can be drawn for future struggles.
The session will be organised as a panel discussion, with the following speakers:
- Our Tottenham (Dave Morris) https://ourtottenham.org.uk/
- Open Spaces Society (Helen Monger) https://www.oss.org.uk/about-us/staff-trustees/
- SHAPE – Southwark Housing and Planning Emergency (Tanya Murat)
- POP – Protect Our Places (speaker to be decided) https://latinelephant.org/protect-our-places/
We expect many in the audience will also want to contribute their experiences and views, so we will leave time for a general discussion following the panel.
Future seminars:
Seminar Two: Moving Forward from Resistance to Alternatives
Seminar Three: Building Networks and Expanding the Scale of Land Stewardship
Land for What? Land for Whom? 