12:43pm Monday 25th January 2010
By Julia Hickson - community correspondent
The Chief Executive of Trust Thamesmead, one of London’s leading community development trusts and the only regeneration charity working exclusively in Thamesmead, has called for new thinking in the current turbulent times caused by the global economic crisis.
Speaking at the launch of the Trust’s latest annual report and review Mick Hayes said that the solution to the problems caused by the current economic crisis can only come from within our local communities.
He said: “We will live with the legacy of the failures of the banks and the recession that followed it for decades to come but how did we all allow it to happen? During these historic times I cannot help but reflect on the scale of the forces that impact upon our lives and how little control we appear to have over them. “This terrible period could however be the stranger we never recognised, the opportunity we were always seeking, the challenge we always wanted! As the institutions we once trusted fall apart, as public funding disappears and as the welfare state becomes unrecognisable the solutions can only come from us within our local communities. We need to change our focus; community wellbeing is as important as Gross Domestic Product.
“In Thamesmead we have a 40 year history of local action. Self help when the services of the state were either not available to a new town or for what ever reason still remain unavailable 40 years on. It’s now up to us to take our own history in our hands and build the Thamesmead we want.”
You can read more about Trust Thamesmead’s work in the charity’s Annual Report and Review 2008-2009 which can be downloaded from the Trust’s website or is available in hard copy by contacting the Communication Department, Trust Thamesmead, 19a Joyce Dawson Way, London SE28 8RA or email contact@trust-thamesmead.co.uk
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