[matilda] Keep MATILDA alive!

[Dan]

Greetings y'all

Back on this fookin list. Hope this e-mail finds you well.

Re. all the below: anyone willing to help with re-drafting / preparing a 
document and petition to go around the area, let's meet tonight at 6. 
I'll phone someone about whether we can get into MATILDA still.

I've pasted below my draft text for an open letter to Yorkshire Forward 
(and I bought a few copies to the meeting earlier.)

This is what I'm proposing: we start a 'keep MATILDA alive' campaign.

This will involve:

1. An open letter (also in a creative flyer / booklet format, for 
leaving about the place) - this needs re-drafting, shortening, making 
more punchy. (See if you can spot the LOTR reference...)

2. A petition (I can hear the DA peeps among you chortling, but there 
*will* be DA, and this will be another prong of our, er, attacking 
fork.)  If we get 500 signatures, we can take it to full cabinet, 
hopefully have Samba outside the town hall, and generally get some press 
/ draw attention to ourselves.

3. A web-site where people can leave messages of support (anonymous or 
not) with names (can we do this?)

4. A collective e-mail address to put on the bottom of the open letter. 
  I'm proposing keepmatildaalive at aktivix.org

The open letter in its current form is quite long, but let me summarise:

1. The CIQ is killing culture: we're not a cultural industry, we're 
industriously creative.  The EDAW report warned about this back in 97: 
nothing was done.

2. We've poured heart and soul into this and, if you're willing to work 
with us, we can continue to do so - but the community must gain some 
ownership over the site in the long run.

3. Ideas on how this might happen.

Assertive, rather than angry, mefinks.




----------------------

An open letter to Yorkshire Forward

Dear YF,

Today, your contractors came to board up Sydney Works, on Matilda St. 
Some time ago, this building was Yorkshire Arts Space.  For many years, 
it has sat empty, slowly decaying in the middle of the Sheffield's 
Cultural Industries Quarter (CIQ).  Sheffield Hallam University bought 
the building from the council but, as their plans changed, they no 
longer wanted it – so Yorkshire Forward bought the building from them. 
You took it, and the surrounding site, off their hands for three million 
pounds in 2005.  It's now part of the 'Porter Brook development area', a 
2 acre site that may or may not become more 'city living.'

Also in 2005, a bunch of people found their way into the building, and 
started using it.  We made meeting spaces, a computer lab made entirely 
from recycled computers and free software, a kitchen made from 
re-claimed building site materials.  We created a performance space – 
the only one in the CIQ where new talent could actually afford to 
perform.  We created artists galleries, put on exhibitions.  We have 
shown countless films, had countless events.  We put all money made back 
into the building, and into future events.  The site came to be known 
affectionately as MATILDA.

It may not have been legal, but we were doing the right thing.  Doing 
the right thing doesn't count for much these days, of course.

When the CIQ was first starting back in 1997, a document was written 
called the EDAW report.  It set out a vision for the CIQ, and argued that:

“An increase in land and property values is much needed, but it could 
have the effect of driving out the marginal cultural businesses and 
creative artists whose presence is so crucial to the Quarter.”

And nine years later – voila!  Many are priced out, and the only bodies 
capable of playing this market are huge monoliths like Hallam, or 
lego-flat building companies who look at land and see only the rent 
yield they can squeeze from students.

We have heard officials tell us that there's plenty of decent workspace 
developing out by the Don Valley.  But that was never the point of the 
CIQ.  Its supposed to be a cluster, a place for exchange, a reflection 
of the city of Sheffield, to be used by all.  Everyone keeps on shouting 
about the Arctic Monkeys, but the truth is they succeeded despite 
Sheffield's 'cultural strategy', not because of it.  They could never 
have afforded to rehearse anywhere near the CIQ, let alone perform here. 
  (Though its interesting watching everyone trying to take the credit.)

The development of the site where MATILDA now stands is to be passed to 
Sheffield One, the city centre development corporation.  (Though this is 
to be subsumed into a new body, 'Creative Sheffield'.  Just how creative 
they will be with the re-development remains to be seen.)

Those of us who have put so much work, love, sweat and material into 
MATILDA over the past year may have no future on the site.  But it seems 
strange to us that you should be so quick to shut us out.

Yorkshire Forward have happily purchased both the Porter Brook site and 
the old National Centre for Popular Music – presumably to help use the 
property in the area to meet Sheffield's 'strategic goals'.  The old 
NCPM is now a student's union.  Nil points.

But the Porter Brook site is yet to be developed.  As we understand it, 
no plans have been firmed up, though Sheffield One may have approached 
contractors.  (We don't know – they didn't get back to us when we 
e-mailed them.)

So it seems to us there's a golden opportunity here.

You may reply, 'you can't buck the market.  Land prices have gone up, 
but there's nothing we can do about that.'  Well, yes and no.

Here's an idea: see what you think.

1. You let us back into the building, and we continue doing what we were 
doing, which is fixing the place up.  It's a long way from meeting all 
legal requirements, but we can get there together.  (“Together we can!” 
That's what the government says, at least.)

We aim towards this: a community-run performance space, for music, 
theatre and whatever else people want to try.  With workspaces, 
galleries and re-cycled computer media labs.

“But we'd have to charge you rent at market rate.”

Not strictly true: any landlord can negotiate on the terms of a lease, 
and we think we can pay rent in kind through the work we do on the 
place.  Indeed, we've already put in probably tens of thousands of 
pound's worth for free.

2. You help us to work toward a future for the building.  Maybe a survey 
will show it needs to be pulled down, and maybe it won't.  Either way, 
the CIQ needs something like this, and this is a once in a lifetime 
opportunity for Yorkshire Forward, captain of development, to show its 
quality.

We understand you have to show outputs, but we think we can help.  As 
just mentioned, we can start by costing all the jobs we do for free – to 
show what it would have cost to re-develop.  We can also use new fangled 
methods of procurement measurement to show the local impact, as opposed 
to the naked bottom line.  Work with us!

We also have some ideas on ownership.  None of us would put in the work 
we do, long term, unless we thought that the building was owned by the 
community.  There are things called Community Land Trusts – you may have 
heard of them.  Such a thing would give the land to the community of 
Sheffield, to be run by a trust.  As with the site of the Showroom, the 
value of the land would be captured for the trust in perpetuity.  For 
the Showroom, this has meant they can subsidise the cinema with the rent 
yield from the Workstation.

Subsidy!  Yes, its true!  See – the market can be bucked.  We think this 
would be better than all the money ending up in landlords' pockets.

“But we can't afford the whole site.”

No indeed – it'll be a lot of money.  But we have a two acre site to 
play with.  It could be that the whole site is taken on by a benign 
developer: one willing to allow a certain percentage of rent yield to 
support the project, or willing to let the trust buy it back over an 
extended period.

Also, any developer of the whole site is required to give a certain 
percentage of the development for 'community benefit'.  (Which is how we 
got that daft poem on the side of the London Road student flats.  Which 
planning officer let them get away with that as community benefit!?)

MATILDA is a tiny aspect of the whole site, and could potentially be 
handed to a trust, as the community benefit component of the larger 
development.  It may need more funding, but hey – we could try and get 
some!  Maybe Jarvis'll give us some.  (Cocker, we mean, not the 
development company.)  We could have MATILDA bonds.  Awesome.

It could also be set up as a charity: that would mean that the 
performance space could get a huge discount on business rates.  That 
way, it would truly be affordable.  But it would really have to benefit 
the community, and not just be another money-making machine: creativity 
in, cash out.  (We can be industriously creative, but we're not sure 
about being a creative industry.)

This way, you could allow all the work, love, sweat and material to 
carry on building something absolutely unique, and absolutely needed. 
It won't be neat and tidy, won't have a nice glass front, won't be a 
'unique urban lifestyle'.  We'll continue to make our shelving and 
work-benches from stuff we find in skips.  But that's kind of the point. 
  (Interesting, that: we recycle, but some people would prefer to spend 
vast amounts of regeneration money.  Hmm...)

Why don't you let us know what you think?  We're just the sort of social 
entrepreneurs we reckon you should be supporting (though, admittedly, we 
don't dress quite as smartly as some of the professional regeneration 
bods in the CIQ, and none of us have business cards.)

We know you're just holding the building until a developer can be found, 
but we think you might have some connections that could help.  We'll do 
our bit if you do yours.

Look forward to hearing from you,

the MATILDA massif

keepmatildaalive at aktivix.org

p.s. Some nice quotes for you:

“Ordinary people really do have the power bring about change, whether 
influencing global decision-making or transforming their community.”
Yorkshire Forward

“Let the People Decide!”
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Press release about recent planning 
law changes...)

“Community involvement in planning should not be a reactive, tick-box, 
process - it should enable the local community to say what sort of place 
they want to live in at a stage when this can make a difference.”
ODPM again