Rob Greenland

My mum and my sister both live on the Croxteth Park estate where Rhys Jones was killed last week. My nephew and niece are around Rhys’s age and I just can’t imagine what his family must be going through.

A thoughtful article in the Observer on Sunday about Liverpool got me thinking about what can be done to “make things better”. The article confirms that there are no quick fixes – only “slow, unrewarding, community action” .

I suppose that is really the only solution – each of us has got to look at our own lives and take actions which slowly but surely make our communities better places. I take inspiration from the street my sister lives on in Croxteth Park. A pretty normal street, mainly small, semi detached houses, with young families and lots of children. A couple of years ago a few people decided to organise a street party. Last year the whole street (yes THE WHOLE STREET) went on holiday together to Spain. They’re currently organising another street party. No particular reason – just because people thought it would be a good thing to do to make the effort to get on with your neighbours.

There’s no Council funding, nor is there a well-meaning community development worker organising a rota for making the sandwiches for the street party. People are doing it themselves. Which, if we’re honest, tends to be the only real thing that works.

This was orginally posted on Rob Greenland’s blog, The Social Business