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Community action/Lambeth

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The aim of this page is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the self-empowerment of community agency networks (CANs) and community groups' activism for climate, environment and many other sustainability topics across Lambeth.

Location data
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Location Lambeth, London
Coordinates 51° 29' 42.76" N, 0° 6' 58.81" W
Lambeth
London
UK
Europe
Cosmolocal
  • News Energy clubs offer chance to reduce electricity bills by up to 30%, theguardian.com (Oct 18, 2025)
  • News Social supermarket is 'a hand up, not a handout', BBC News (Mar 21, 2025)
Read more
  • News ‘I don’t like being stuck in an office’: the young people helping plant a ring of trees around London, theguardian.com (Jun 17, 2026) — London Tree Ring project aims to create corridors of plant and animal life around the city to strengthen its biodiversity
  • News London, San Francisco and Beijing achieve ‘remarkable reductions’ in air pollution, theguardian.com (Mar 12, 2026) — Cycle lanes, electric cars and other interventions have helped 19 global cities slash levels of pollutants by more than 20%
  • News East London is at high risk of extreme flooding – here’s how to limit the damage, theconversation.com (Feb 11, 2026)
  • News Met Office issues rare red weather warning for Wednesday and Thursday, theguardian.com (Jun 22, 2026)
  • News Rights of Nature movement grows, with the Wye and Ouse subject to new protection charters, wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk (Jun 18, 2026) — Nature sits at the heart of several new sets of rights and charters; it’s even headlining a festival this summer. Is the way that we view and value Nature within our political and cultural frameworks at a turning point? asks Hannah Marsh
  • News This city had a flooding problem. So it turned to an animal that had been extinct there for 400 years, edition.cnn.com (Jun 18, 2026)
  • News Amsterdam, along with other major European cities, bans public adverts for meat and fossil fuels [BBC], Daily Alternative (May 22, 2026)
  • News How reindeer herds, nature and Sámi culture can thrive when forests are restored across northern Europe, theconversation.com (May 15, 2026)
  • News Rewilding giants: captive elephants rehomed in Europe’s first sanctuary, theguardian.com (May 07, 2026)
  • News Collaborative Finance (CoFi): rethinking finance for the commons, growingcommons.substack.com (Jun 07, 2026) — What finance looks like when communities build and govern it themselves, Michel Rauchs
  • News Radical change can lead to a fairer and greener world, says new report, positive.news (Jun 04, 2026) — A major new study argues that rising living standards, shorter working hours and a liveable climate are not competing dreams, but parts of the same future – if the world is willing to tackle extreme inequality
  • News Dutch kids declared the world’s happiest (again). Here’s why, positive.news (Jun 02, 2026) — Dutch children are consistently ranked the happiest kids in the developed world. What is the Netherlands getting right? And does the humble bike have something to do with it?

Networks and sustainability initiatives

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  • Norwood Forum, volunteer-led organisation covering the south-east area of the London Borough of Lambeth, and aiming to celebrate "our wonderful neighbourhood and its vibrant, diverse, but cohesive community whilst making a positive difference to the quality of life for people who live and work here." added 15:30, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
  • Transition Town Brixton

CDC videos

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Cosmolocal discovery club

Each week 3 different short videos from across the UK or world.

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Future Rural Voices: perspectives on the countryside’s future
Authors: Campaign to Protect Rural England, 2.35 mins.
Date: 2026-05-07
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Local Power, Lower Bills: Up the Energy!
Authors: Community Energy England, 1.38 mins.
Date: 2026-03-10
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Tiree - This is Community Wealth Building
Authors: Scottish Community Alliance, 3.44 mins.
Date: 2025-11-18

Rural sustainability UK, Community energy UK, Community action/Argyll and Bute / ...This week's featured Global videos / ... read more about Cosmolocalism

Lambeth video

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London's Lambeth: Creating Mini Town Squares with Modal Filters
Authors: Streetfilms®, 3.54 mins.
Date: 2025-09-12
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UK and international events

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UK events

UK community action events

Global or international events

  • Event July 2026 — Plastic Free July, plasticfreejuly.org
  • Event Jul 04, 2026 (Sat) — International Day of Cooperatives (CoopsDay), 1st Saturday of July. The celebration aims to showcase co-operatives’ role in building ‘inclusive, resilient, and sustainable communities’, coopsday.coop
  • Event Jul 18, 2026 (Sat) — Mandela Day, global celebration 18 July annually, to honour the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela. A call to action for individuals, communities, and organisations to take time to reflect on Mandela's values and principles and to make a positive impact in their own communities, mandeladay.com

2021-2030, UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, International community action events

Community involvement

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Food activism

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Community energy

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Brixton Energy, not-for-profit co-operative who create cooperatively owned renewable energy projects

Community resources

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  • West Norwood Community Shop, "an amazing resource for people in Norwood who are in receipt of any state benefit" added 15:34, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Library of things

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Crystal Palace Library of Things, link checked 17:24, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Upper Norwood Library

Upper Norwood Library is a community managed library in Upper Norwood, South London. It stands on Westow Hill, in Crystal Palace town centre, within the London Borough of Lambeth, but on the edge of the boundary with the London Borough of Croydon. It is funded largely by Lambeth Council, and in part by Croydon Council, with the building itself managed by a community-run independent charity, the Upper Norwood Library Trust. It is part of the Lambeth network of libraries, and thus accepts Lambeth library membership cards.

Onsite is one of the first Library of Things, a self-service borrowing initiative active across local communities which lends objects instead of books from a conventional library. These objects include anything from garden tools to sports gear, toys to electro-domestic equipment. The Upper Norwood Library Hub, the operations arm of the Upper Norwood Library Trust, manages the building itself, and runs various classes, workshops and initiatives within the space. The library also has space available for private hire through the Hub.

Coin Street Community Builders

Coin Street Community Builders (CSCB) is a development trust and social enterprise which seeks to make London's South Bank a better place in which to live, to work, to visit and to study. Since 1984 CSCB has transformed a largely derelict 13-acre site into a thriving mixed-use neighbourhood.

Since its creation in 1984, CSCB redeveloped the Oxo Tower Wharf, Gabriel's Wharf, Bernie Spain Gardens and set up four housing co-operatives (Mulberry, Palm, Redwood and Iroko). The housing co-operatives are housed in new buildings commissioned by CSCB. Palm (also known as Broadwall) was designed by Lifschutz Davidson (now Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands) completed in 1994. Iroko was designed by architects Haworth Tompkins and was completed in 2001.

In 2007, CSCB occupied new offices at the Coin Street neighbourhood centre, also designed by Haworth Tompkins. As well as offices the building includes a day nursery and crèche, conference and meeting facilities.

CSCB also offers a variety of community programmes for people of all ages including youth clubs, sports and dance sessions and family and children's activities.

CSCB opposed the Garden Bridge project which would have been partially built on their land.

Citizens data initiative

Lambeth open data

Visions

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Every Second Is The Future
Authors: What If Lambeth, Jun 16, 2021
  • What if Lambeth, community project organised by Transition Town Brixton and part of the Bounce Forward 2030 project.

Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle

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Community currencies activism

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Brixton Pound

more video: Brixton Pound / Debate Your Plate.com

Summary: Brixton Pound, stimulates the local economy by supporting smaller shops and traders which operate in a challenging economic climate and in competition with larger chains. The currency stays in Brixton and circulates, increasing local trade and community connections...brixtonpound.org

The Brixton district in South London's Lambeth borough has been a bastion of progressive thought and culture for decades. After the financial crisis of 2008, local businesses were struggling and had trouble securing loans from banks. An area that had once thrived began to stumble.

The Brixton Pound (B£) was launched in 2009 by Transition Town Brixton to support local businesses with a local currency that would "stick to Brixton." The founders of the B£ wanted to create a mutual support system tying residents to local businesses and encouraging business to source locally.

The local borough government, Lambeth Council, was supportive of the B£ from the beginning. It recognized the local currency as a way to develop the community, build local economic resilience, and draw positive attention to the area. According to B£ Communications Manager, Marta Owczarek, "The council's support has greatly helped the B£ start and develop — it would have been very difficult to do what we did without that support. In particular, it acted as a guarantee that the scheme was trustworthy, so local business owners and residents alike felt secure in exchanging their money into and accepting the brand-new local currency."

Within the first six months of the launch of the B£, Lambeth conducted research that estimated the media coverage of the currency generated by the B£ volunteers was worth half a million pounds to the area.

Since 2012, the B£ has "been a live part of the Co-operative Council, working alongside the policy team," according to Owczarek. As a result, the B£ has been able to play an active role in supporting the community while receiving council support. The B£ helped set up community spaces like the Impact Hub in the Town Hall. Lambeth helped the B£ create a mobile electronic payments system, and was also the first council to pay wages in local currency and accept a local currency for taxes. In 2014, the Lambeth Co-Operative Investment Fund gave the B£ funding to start a community lottery program, which was launched in 2015. The lottery increased the circulation of the B£, became an additional revenue source for the B£, and enabled the B£ to fund community projects.

The B£ has also helped Lambeth gain prominence globally and locally. In 2012, thanks to encouragement from the B£, the Council secured funding to join an international project to expand community currencies. On a local level, Lambeth won the Mayor's High Street Fund to install a local currency cash machine, possibly the first in the world.

Free stuff

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Climate action

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Cycling activism

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Cycling in Lambeth, news from Lambeth Council

Urban sustainability

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West Norwood Feast brings a volunteer powered street market to Norwood Road on the first Sunday of every month

Community safety

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Community Police Consultative Group for Lambeth, Independent forum for community and statutory agencies to address community safety and policing issues.

Education for sustainability

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Vauxhall City Farm

Open spaces

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The London Borough of Lambeth, in spite of being close to the centre of London has over 78 parks and open spaces, 27 of which include children's play areas and five paddling pools, within its boundaries.

Lambeth is a riverside borough, and one of the largest open spaces is the Thames itself, forming the northern boundary of the borough. A sign posted riverside trail forms a walkway for both pedestrians and cyclists. W

News archive

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2017

  • 10 lessons from London's first community fridge, Mar 14, 2017...@positivenewsuk
  • London's first community fridge launches in Brixton, Feb 9, 2017...@BrixtonBlog

2016

A stunning project in the heart of London is taking on the might of globalisation, Dec 13, 2016...@thecanarysays

2011-2015

How do you create a city for all? The answer lies in West Norwood, Dec 2, 2015...The Guardian

  • Brixton Pound app to be available at the App Store for free later in July, with an Android version expected to follow later this summer, June 18, 2014...The Brixton Pound
  • Lambeth Energy Partnership Aims, Opportunities and Stakeholders, February 5, 2014...transitiontownbrixton.org
  • What is the Brixton Bonus? 2014...The Brixton Pound (undated)
  • UK's first electronic local currency now live!..brixtonpound.org, September 30, 2011

About Lambeth

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Past Events

  • Mar 20, 2016 - PopFarm Community Launch eventbrite

Lambeth ( ) is a London borough in South London, England, which forms part of Inner London. Its name was recorded in 1062 as Lambehitha ("landing place for lambs") and in 1255 as Lambeth. The geographical centre of London is at Frazier Street near Lambeth North tube station, though nearby Charing Cross on the other side of the Thames in the City of Westminster is traditionally considered the centre of London.

Page data
Keywords London borough, Library of things, Visions UK
SDG SDG11 Sustainable cities and communities
Authors Phil Green
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 262 pages link here
Redirects Lambeth, Lambeth community action
Views 97 page views (analytics)
Created March 29, 2014 by Phil Green
Last edit March 27, 2026 by Phil Green
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