Let’s build our own hope & power | w. Ambition Lawrence Weston & David Tudgey

4:19David Tudgey:You know, this is just one achievement. Our biggest and first achievement was Lidl, getting Lidl there. Then it was putting in play parks. Then it was running our own shuttle bus service. Then there was the Neighbour development plan. We'd help deliver a community cafe. We've got a community gardening group.

4:34Ambition Lawrence Weston:I mean, it's incredible, like, the amount of stuff you've done as a community.

4:37David Tudgey:I didn't even touch on the winter, right? or the 36 affordable homes we're about to build.

4:42Ambition Lawrence Weston:So let me just sum that up for you. Mark and a bunch of residents of Lawrence Weston first got a supermarket built in what was a food desert, then changed the planning laws to build affordable, energy-efficient homes that keep bills down for residents. They followed that with a community gardening group, a cafe and a bus service to take people to work, then provided employment training for residents and, yes, we're coming back to this, built England's tallest wind turbine, which is 100 % community owned. So really, the£2.2 million community centre is just the icing on the top.

5:14David Tudgey:Don't take no for an answer anymore, so you just try and find a way around that.

5:18Ambition Lawrence Weston:Well, let's go see it. Can you show us?

5:23Mark Pepper:As we head out onto the streets of Lawrence Weston, I'm assuming you're thinking Mark and his band of residents are the outliers. The one in a million community superheroes who stop at nothing and who we all pale in comparison to. Either that or one of them must be a millionaire. I have so many questions about how. I just want to know, how did you even know what was the first thing to do?

5:48David Tudgey:So when we first started, all those years back, the issue was housing, food, employment, really big issues. I thought Ambition Lawrence Weston was just going to be a small group where we put in for a bit of money to put some hanging baskets up in the local area, you know, have a bit of a fate every now and again. Little did I know that you're turning into the monster early it's turned into.

6:07Ambition Lawrence Weston:Ambition Lawrence-Weston, a name that local school kids came up with back in 2012. At that time, the area was among the most disadvantaged in the UK.

6:16David Tudgey:So we came together to change our lot, really, because we were fed up of being ignored and forgotten about by politicians and the like.

6:23Ambition Lawrence Weston:Like a lot of places in the UK, austerity was hitting Lawrence-Weston hard. The local youth centre was under threat of closure, hubs were shutting down, and the local sixth-form college had just closed, leaving a massive empty site right in the heart of the community.

6:36Mark Pepper:Yeah, those are not small problems.

6:38Ambition Lawrence Weston:No, and to tackle them, Mark and the other residents wanted to try something new.

6:42David Tudgey:We didn't want to make the same mistakes of other agendas by just telling residents what they need. So we went out and door knocked everyone's house and asked them three questions. What's good about Lawrence Weston, what's not so good, and what needs changing?

6:53Ambition Lawrence Weston:So when Mark says they knocked on everyone's door, he means it. 3 ,000 doors to be precise.

6:58Mark Pepper:I mean, that is incredible. No one ever does that.

7:01Ambition Lawrence Weston:I know you start to realise that a lot of the time we're just being told top down what we need rather than anyone actually asking what we want.

7:08Mark Pepper:And so what did the residents of Boris Weston want?

7:11David Tudgey:82 % of the people that responded to that survey said what they really needed was a supermarket. We had low car ownership. We had poor public transport. We had residents with eye mobility issues, single parents. The nearest other supermarket is about four miles away and there's not really a good way to get there, especially if you're carrying bags of groceries.

7:32Mark Pepper:Well, that seems a pretty sensible request.

7:34Ambition Lawrence Weston:Yeah, because the only place in the area back then was a convenience store, open till 10, limited selection of food. And on top of that...

7:40David Tudgey:To give you an example, Lawrence Weston being one of the most deprived areas in Bristol, in the supermarket that we had then, a bottle of Schweppes lemonade was£1.69. The same company in the most affluent area of Bristol was selling exactly the same bottle of lemonade, but for 99p. So we could tell we were being ripped off, basically. We duly took our survey and said to the local authority, we desperately need a supermarket. They were of the opinion that no supermarkets were interested.

8:08Mark Pepper:So do they give up?

8:10Ambition Lawrence Weston:Well, not quite. Then what happened?

8:13David Tudgey:We paid for an independent retail expert to go out and just check with the industry whether or not any supermarkets would or would not like to come to Lawrence Westman.

8:20Ambition Lawrence Weston:To do this, they used a small pot of community development funding they'd already raised. The hanging baskets would have to wait.

8:28David Tudgey:And lo and behold, five supermarkets said, yeah, they would consider coming here. So we encouraged the local authority to think again. We are now walking into the new, well, I say new. It was built in 2018 and at that point was a flagship store.

8:44Mark Pepper:Again, it feels like a nice place to go. It feels like a nice place to shop. Just down the hill from the community centre, we're standing in an open car park with a flash-looking superstore in front of us.

8:55Ambition Lawrence Weston:So you had five supermarkets wanted to come. How did you choose?

8:58David Tudgey:We forced our way into the interview panel for those selected supermarkets to come. There was four others, but they all sort of had the same business strategies where they did convenience pricing. And we didn't want that. We just wanted a bit of equity. Why should it be a more expensive year than somewhere else? And also their employment conditions were far better. Their wages were far better. Fantastic selection of whiskey, which is what sold me.

9:21Mark Pepper:It was very exciting to go inside. I am also raffin' excited. Yeah, I know, I forgot your name just now because I'm not so hungry.

9:30Ambition Lawrence Weston:Years of persistence paid off, and from a position of no power and no say at all, Mark and the Lawrence Weston residents not only got what they asked for, they also demanded a choice, a say on employment rights and food affordability.

9:45Mark Pepper:It's like a proper big, like, supermarket. I mean, it must make such a difference.

9:50David Tudgey:We want to provide something that people could see, kick, touch, feel, use, and not just a lot of promises and a lot of words, which is what they've been used to. And I think that really gelled people to come together because, you know, the proof was in the pudding. That was the evidence that that could be done.

10:07Mark Pepper:As we sit outside enjoying our lunch, the different approach that Mark and his fellow residents are taking is only just sinking in. Just incredible. Like, they've basically just been like, fuck it, these guys aren't going to do it. We're just going to do it ourselves.

10:20Ambition Lawrence Weston:Yeah, I just guess there's this unrelenting sense of possibility. It's just practical, common sense approach.

10:27Mark Pepper:Very cool. You know what? It's so nice to hear people actually getting what they want.

10:32Ambition Lawrence Weston:And does that surprise you?

10:34Mark Pepper:Yeah, it's really surprising because we're constantly being told that we can't even have, like, the basics, you know, safe housing, affordable food, lower energy bills.

10:43Ambition Lawrence Weston:And the fact they got it, I think that's a lot down to attitude.

10:46Mark Pepper:Yeah, they knew what the community wanted and they weren't willing to let someone else tell them that they were wrong. And that's really refreshing.

10:54Ambition Lawrence Weston:So with an affordable option finally available, the residents of Lawrence Western went one stage further, taking on the very foundations of a neighbourhood. A mission that takes us just a couple of streets away.

11:05David Tudgey:These are some of the new homes. So they're a passive house accredited.

11:08Mark Pepper:Tell me what that means.

11:09David Tudgey:That means they're extremely environmentally friendly. OK. Even from where they source the materials down to how the homes are powered, basically.

11:19Mark Pepper:These sleek, grey-looking bungalows are social housing, built on the recommendation of Ambition Lawrence Weston.

11:26David Tudgey:We had a lot of poor quality housing in Lawrence Weston. We wanted homes, we wanted good quality homes. We wanted homes that were warm, easy to heat to save money in our pockets. So not only should the homes be less unaffordable to rent, but less unaffordable to live in. So we developed a neighbourhood development plan.

11:43Mark Pepper:So is that like when people get together and just decide what they want their neighbourhood to be like?

11:47Ambition Lawrence Weston:Right. But the bit that's different to doing that around a table in a pub is that the outcome is actually legally binding and gives residents a say in what's being built in their local area.

11:57David Tudgey:We just spoke to some of these planners, these architects, and said this is what we want. It may not have been in architect-speak, it might not have been in planning-speak, but it was in normal English-speak, and they then translated that into planning policy.

12:09Ambition Lawrence Weston:With some help from some organisations that specialise in this kind of advice, locality and vivid, the Lawrence Western residents basically ended up with a set of rules.

12:19David Tudgey:We were the first in the country to outlaw gas burners, so there's no more gas boilers, they want that to be air source, they're heat pumping. Every new home being built has got EV charging points, They need to take a fabric-first approach on the house, solar panels.

12:33Mark Pepper:What does that mean, fabric-first approach?

12:35David Tudgey:Just make sure that the building is built well, that you don't need to heat it, if that makes sense. The building is really well insulated. So every house that's been built in Lawrence Weston, and there's around about 500 homes, new homes now, they've all had to abide by the neighbourhood development plan.

12:51Mark Pepper:So that's 500 new homes that by law have to be warmer, safer, and less expensive to run?

12:58Ambition Lawrence Weston:Yeah, and doesn't that just sound like a good idea? But right now they're taking it one step further by designing and building their own homes.

13:08David Tudgey:We're partway through delivering 36 less-unaffordable, highly energy-efficient homes in Lawrence Weston, exclusively for Lawrence Weston residents, designed by the residents in the way that they want to live.

13:20Ambition Lawrence Weston:They're designing homes for other people in the community, but according to what they know that people in this community want.

13:26David Tudgey:Yeah, through their experiences living in this community, how they would like to live in this community. Spades and a grand will hopefully be going in in 2026.

13:34Ambition Lawrence Weston:And there is a thread that runs through all of this.

13:38Mark Pepper:How did you get engaged in the environment?

13:41David Tudgey:We realised that climate action and community development are exactly the same thing, just that we're coming at it from two different ways.

13:48Mark Pepper:How are they the same?

13:49David Tudgey:I think what was really frustrating for the residents is we're always being told, you know, we've got to change our lives, we've got to change our behaviours, our attitudes around climate. They know the ice caps are melting, but more importantly to them, the ice in their freezers will melt and then they're losing that food because they can't afford the electricity. That's their priorities, not climate. But we want energy-efficient homes to keep the money in our pocket. The climate group want energy-efficient homes to reduce the carbon and save the planet. So absolutely everything we realise, climate is community development.

14:17Mark Pepper:That must have been a big lightbulb moment.

14:19David Tudgey:Yeah, definitely.

14:22Mark Pepper:You know what this reminds me of?

14:23Ambition Lawrence Weston:What?

14:24Mark Pepper:This idea that we can either care about people or we can care about the planet. Like this division, this way of like dividing us and saying you can only care about one thing. Actually, the things that we need and want can have very similar solutions that can make us all better off.

14:40Ambition Lawrence Weston:Totally. And we exist in this media moment where the pundits are trying to get us all het up and aggro with each other. When most of us all want the same things. We don't want to feel like we're being ripped off. We want energy bills we can afford. We want homes we can afford to heat so we have more money for other things.

14:57David Tudgey:You're right in the back. I don't mind getting in the back. That's right. You can go to the front.

15:00Ambition Lawrence Weston:And you could say that Mark and his fellow residents took this lightbulb moment very seriously. Right.

15:09David Tudgey:You tell me where to go because I'm heading that way to begin with and then left.

15:15Mark Pepper:We're heading across the motorway a short distance from Lawrence Western proper.

15:19Ambition Lawrence Weston:This area has long been industry central and now is no different, with warehouses on one side and chimney stacks on the other. But poking just above the trees that line the road are the blades of a few wind turbines.

15:33David Tudgey:So we've seen all these wind turbines for years and years. Big companies and corporations are putting them up, making a lot of money. We've never benefited from them. So we decided that we'd like one ourselves. The ideal came from a local resident, Roger Sabido, And we were in a pub after just having a meeting in City Hall, and he said, what we need is our own wind turbine. Why should it be other people that are, you know, pinching our wind, if you like, and using our land? Why can't we have a slice of that? I realised at that point we'd had one too many, so I said, get your coat, we're going.

16:03David Tudgey:But he still pestered me day on day. And then, just to keep Roger off me back, basically, we asked David Tudgy, you know, go and have a look, see what can be achieved.

16:12Ambition Lawrence Weston:We're going to meet David Tudgy later, but for now, he's the guy that went on the fact-finding mission to see if this crazy idea could even get close to happening and then got on with actually doing it.

16:22Mark Pepper:But this was back in 2015, when the government and local planners were really heavily opposed to any onshore wind projects. So Mark and David Tudgy and the rest of Ambition Lawrence Weston needed some serious community backing. So how, I guess, how did you talk to local residents about it to get them on board without having to make them experts in energy policy?

16:44David Tudgey:So we just said, what do you feel about wind turbines? They were indifferent. And then we said, how do you feel about a wind turbine that would generate an income for your community? So, you know, to have a wind turbine that's going to generate you some money, what's not to like? Right. So there's all that for it. That was it. That was it.

17:01Mark Pepper:And it worked. Not a single person put in an objection to the wind turbine.

17:06Ambition Lawrence Weston:Well, yeah, I mean, compared to what we hear in the news, that just seems such a straightforward approach. Like, it's such a simple argument.

17:14David Tudgey:Common sense, really, isn't it? Yeah. Some people aren't in need for that money. So some people have got the choice to oppose them because they feel there's a blot on their landscape when they're not worrying about how they're going to pay the rent or their electricity bill. So, you know, they may be coming at it from a different angle.

17:29Ambition Lawrence Weston:Through a combination of mortgage-style loans and funding, they hit their target in 2023. And eight years after that late-night pub conversation, spades hit the ground.

17:39David Tudgey:And there's a little private car park we need to park into and then walk the rest.

17:43Ambition Lawrence Weston:From the industrial spaghetti junction, we're suddenly tucked away in a hidden corner of green, the sound of the M4 and M5 still blaring in the background. So we are in, like, a proper nature reserve.

17:56Mark Pepper:We are actually just having a lovely country stroll with blackberries and, like, a little troll bridge. Oh, there's literally something squawking. A deer, I think. Huh? A deer!

18:08Ambition Lawrence Weston:It's like actual wildlife all around us.

18:13Ambition Lawrence Weston:So we've just come out of some trees to a massive wind turbine. I mean, that is huge.

18:19David Tudgey:You're looking at granddad's wind turbine, apparently, according to my grandkids. No, so this is the wind turbine that is owned by the residents of Lawrence Western. It's the tallest wind turbine in England. 150 metres tall. What are you, two metres? I'm at 1.9. Right, so say two. Yeah. So that's 75 people. 75. 75 of me.

18:38Mark Pepper:Wow.

18:38David Tudgey:Whoa. The blades, believe it or not, so I'm told at their fastest can travel 180 miles an hour. It generates enough power to power 3 ,500 ohms, which happens to be the same amount of ohms that we've got in Lawrence Weston. But what we've got is a deal where we sell it to the national grid and then they pay us directly for that money. That benefits us even more because we can still address fuel poverty with those that are suffering from fuel poverty. but that support can then reach more people to do more things. So how much does it bring in? £100 ,000 a year for the first few years until the debts have paid off.

19:15David Tudgey:And then that will increase dramatically.

19:18Mark Pepper:I was wanting to know that number the whole way here. 100 grand a year.

19:24David Tudgey:We didn't build a wind turbine to save the planet. We built a wind turbine because that was the only asset we had in the era that had a chance of generating an income for us.

19:34Mark Pepper:You know what I like the most about this turbine? What's that? I mean, there are a lot of things, but mainly that the community started this whole thing because they were sick of feeling ignored, right?

19:43Ambition Lawrence Weston:Yeah.

19:43Mark Pepper:And then they built this megalith towering over everything, and it's like a physical embodiment of trying to ignore us now.

19:50Ambition Lawrence Weston:I love it.

19:55David Tudgey:And so are we heading over now to the allotment? We are, yeah, if you like. And we'll see what the nature squad we're up to.

20:01Mark Pepper:We end our day in the community allotment. This is absolutely amazing. And you're going to have to forgive me because I live in a city and this is very far from what I get to see every day. This is amazing, pear trees, apple trees. That's what happens on allotment. Yeah, you know, and this is my first allotment.

20:21Ambition Lawrence Weston:It's the school holidays and Lawrence Weston Community Development Manager Donna is leading a forest school day for local kids and their parents. So today, so we've got, I don't know, 25 people and we've just got a bit of lunch cooking at the back. What are they growing here? I mean, we've got tomatoes, leeks, potatoes, cabbages, Jerusalem artichokes. And how did all this come about? Like what was the origin of this? So a lot of families, you know, don't have access to fresh fruit and veg, so it kind of come out of that.

20:54David Tudgey:Ultimately it's around about the health of our kids basically and trying to get them away from processed crap food into eating more fresh, you know, seasonal, better for you sort of sort of food while having a hell of a lot of fun.

21:07Ambition Lawrence Weston:So we're trying to feed the chickens.

21:09David Tudgey:There we go, see?

21:11Ambition Lawrence Weston:All works out in the end.

21:14Mark Pepper:We're standing in this idyllic moment. The sun's just come out. Excited little kids are running around feeding these eager chickens through a wire fence.

21:27David Tudgey:I love being with the kids, you know, just seeing them amazed by what happened.

21:33Mark Pepper:Mark's joking around with his grandkids and this feels like real community. So I'm really curious, like you talked about the incredible work that you've enabled here. How does it feel to be walking around the things you've achieved?

21:47David Tudgey:You know, sometimes I'll have to pinch myself and think, well, we made that supermarket come here. we built that wind turbine we've we're doing these actions we've influenced all these homes we've put those play parks in but it's not very often you get a chance to really sit back and appreciate what you and your fellow residents have done over the last 15 years or so

22:07Ambition Lawrence Weston:what are you going to do next what are your plans that's entirely up to the residents

22:10David Tudgey:as soon as they let us know we'll let you know

22:17Mark Pepper:it's been one of those days where a part of your mind kind of blows open a bit Like we can all get stuck in the minutiae of why something shouldn't work or why it's hard. And it's not like that doesn't exist here. Change is difficult. It takes time. But it feels like for the community of Ambition Lawrence Weston, that just isn't a good enough reason not to do it. I'm really excited for other people to hear the story because it's so not the story that you hear. You know, of people just being able to do things because they want to make their communities better and succeeding.

22:51Ambition Lawrence Weston:Yeah.

22:51Mark Pepper:Like, people are shopping at the supermarket. People are using that community centre. The kids were playing in the allotment. Like, the wind turbine is spinning. Like, and it's just very normal.

23:03Ambition Lawrence Weston:And the biggest difference is a mindset shift.

23:05Mark Pepper:I think a lot of people start from the assumption that this is impossible. And they start from the assumption that this is possible. We've just got to unlock the right path.

23:15Ambition Lawrence Weston:What excites me is that it shows that people have all the skills needed. You just need common sense and community and people coming together. And all those ideas are there in all the communities that we have around the country. We just need to have the belief to harness them.

23:30Mark Pepper:Mark, I'd really like to live in his vision of what the world could be, quite frankly. That was a great day.

23:38Ambition Lawrence Weston:It was a great day. The biggest thing for me here is how they stopped asking and started doing. And I started to realise on my own life, as soon as we ask other people for stuff, like we demand change or we ask somebody if we can have something, we kind of disempower ourselves because they can say no and they've worked around that because

23:54Mark Pepper:they're just cracking on yes and they haven't just done it for one thing i think that's what's really struck me is that it wasn't just a wind turbine or a supermarket it was this really holistic view of all the things in their community that they had ambition for and in a way that just opens up a lot of possibility that i think we've shut down and we've been told we can't have and so that just feels like it unsticks you a little bit from this feeling of hopelessness might sound too big but

24:23Ambition Lawrence Weston:stuckness maybe yeah i think you've hit on something i've started to feel more and more when visiting communities like this and the most exciting part is this isn't even close to the end

24:32David Tudgey:of what's possible we believe there's a whole load of sites that are out there that could be developed for communities similar to one in lawrence western this could happen everywhere across the whole country.

24:44Ambition Lawrence Weston:This is David Tudgy. You remember the guy who helped Mark and the residents of Lawrence Western deliver their community wind turbine?

24:50David Tudgey:Yeah, that guy.

24:51Ambition Lawrence Weston:Well, he's got big plans in the works.

24:54David Tudgey:I'm the founder of Community Power Solutions and Bristol Energy Network. The big ambition is scaling one turbine to 100 turbines across the country, powering about 2 million homes. That's what I'm aiming to do over the next five years.

25:11Mark Pepper:Okay, wait, how many households are there in this country?

25:14Ambition Lawrence Weston:There are 30 million. Around.

25:16Mark Pepper:Okay, so that's not insignificant. No.

25:19David Tudgey:But the important bit is about creating that opportunity for turbines and renewable infrastructure and they can be owned and controlled by local communities.

25:27Ambition Lawrence Weston:So basically David and his team will look all around the country for the best sites for community-owned wind turbines.

25:32Mark Pepper:I'm guessing where it's windy.

25:34Ambition Lawrence Weston:Priority number one. But not only that, like where the planning process for this kind of thing isn't insane. And then they'll start approaching those communities.

25:42David Tudgey:Once we bring those two things together, the passion of the community and the scientific and engineering excellence of members of the network, that's when something special can happen. It could be a wind turbine in one location, it could be solar on roofs or solar in a community or energy efficiency in another community. And I would say that we're not doing this without government and we're not doing it without corporations.

26:08Mark Pepper:OK, so it's not like they're entirely shunning the system?

26:11Ambition Lawrence Weston:No, not at all. In fact, David told me they're working closely with councils on making this happen. But it's also not business as usual. And here's where they're going to take it one step further than even Lawrence Weston.

26:23David Tudgey:You'll see on your bill how much of your bill is made up by local generation. And that benefit is then passed on to the consumer and also to the local community organisation like Ambition Lawrence Weston.

26:39Ambition Lawrence Weston:From what you're saying, I'm imagining a world where our energy bills are not going up and in fact they could come down.

26:45David Tudgey:That's certainly the vision at the moment and in doing so people will start to see, I've got a bit of a cheaper bill. So I think what community energy offers is rather than the price of energy being dependent on what happens somewhere in the Middle East because there's been a war or something, you know, shooting the price of energy up, that if we own the asset locally ourselves, then we're kind of protected from that sort of price shocks.

27:12Mark Pepper:I mean, that is so cool.

27:14Ambition Lawrence Weston:I know. And actually, I did some digging.

27:16Mark Pepper:To build a wind turbine?

27:17Ambition Lawrence Weston:I'm not there yet. But I looked up how many community energy projects there are already across the UK, and there are 400 already up and running.

27:25Mark Pepper:Wow, that's amazing.

27:26Ambition Lawrence Weston:There's a community in Wales who are powered by a stream

27:30Mark Pepper:near their village.

27:31David Tudgey:We're a hyper-individualistic society. The idea of doing something different to that is kind of a bit, whoa, why are you doing that? The fact that children are growing up in damp, mouldy homes, when you're aware of those things, and they could be easily solved. You can build a turbine with three months to build the foundations, two weeks to put the turbine up. This isn't rocket science. This could be done quickly. It's just our Our mindset isn't ready yet for this. So that's what we're changing now is that mindset.

28:01Mark Pepper:So what you're telling me is that one day in the not too distant future, all of us could have lower bills because of local community energy?

28:10Ambition Lawrence Weston:Exactly. Let me take you there. Imagine a world where instead of blood-curdling screams when you open your electricity bill, you feel a sense of calm, gratitude and even power. That's right. Imagine if your power gave you power. and that rather than handing ever larger piles of cash to a faceless corporation, you gave it to yourselves to make your bills go down and your community get better? Yeah, turns out that's actually totally possible. These technologies, there's no reason we can't own them in our communities. And it's realistic. In Germany, almost 8 % of the grid is run by these kind of communities.

28:48Ambition Lawrence Weston:And I find it so exciting that we could do that here. And I think we should set our sights higher, like 10 % minimum.

28:53Mark Pepper:I mean, it's really exciting because when you go from like one wind turbine in one community to 10 % of the energy grid, you're no longer just like a community doing something on the fringe. You become someone who has a seat at the table and that can fundamentally shift everything.

29:09David Tudgey:I think for the people on the street, having that mentality of build like a country again, we've built incredible things in this country and I have immense pride in doing that. and we can create that pride and sense of collectivism to deliver amazing things. The communities that are succeeding are the ones that are going to work together and collaborate and get the things done. So, you know, watch it grow, I think.

29:38Mark Pepper:I love it. But if you're sitting here thinking, wow, those people are so cool, what a lovely story, but that could never be me.

29:46Ambition Lawrence Weston:We don't want you to just feel all warm and fuzzy.

29:48Mark Pepper:No.

29:49Ambition Lawrence Weston:We hope above all else, this story proves that you can create real change. You don't need magical superpowers or to start with tons of cash.

29:57Mark Pepper:All you need is to start where you are and ask what your community needs.

30:01Ambition Lawrence Weston:And to help you along your way, we've trawled Mark's wisdom for three top tips. Number one, talk to the people around you and ask what they want.

30:09David Tudgey:Do exactly what we've done and let's consult with local residents. Just because we're a resident don't mean to say that we know what other residents want. Find out what they think their problems are. bring them together like we did and ask them, well, you've told us these are your problems. What's the solutions? What do you think we need to do?

30:24Mark Pepper:Number two, use this knowledge to set out your vision.

30:27David Tudgey:Now, for the first time, we knew what our problems were. We had some suggestions on how to solve those problems, and we had a clear pathway of how to get there. That in itself gave confidence to outside investors and other supporters to say, yeah, this community know what they're about, know what they're trying to achieve. They've got some good ideas and solutions to get there, so let's get behind them and make it happen.

30:49Ambition Lawrence Weston:And finally, number three.

30:51David Tudgey:We don't take no for an answer anymore, so we just try and find a way around that. We ask for forgiveness, not permission. So crack on and do it. That is our mantra, really. We've got a really low skill set, a low knowledge set, we've got no money, but yet we've still managed to do it. So there's no reason that any other community similar to ours can't go on and achieve great things like the residents of Lawrence Weston have.

31:21Ambition Lawrence Weston:The world we live in is based on ideas and rules people made up, but together we can make up better ones. Good things are happening all around us, and in little ways, together, we build big things. In a time of massive division, we need to find these things that bind us, the things we all need, food, energy, housing, input and decision-making, and work together on them, So visit our website at antidotelive.studio to use our new postcode search tool. It'll show you what collective action that could lead to big change is already happening within five miles of your house. And if there isn't any, it'll give you tips from folks who've already done this on how you can get started.

32:01Ambition Lawrence Weston:Or follow us on social media, antidotelive on Instagram and antidote underscore live on TikTok.

32:07Mark Pepper:And you can tell us what you're up to there. We'd love to hear it. We'll be back next time with a community in Northern Ireland who said screw this and started a local greengrocer to reboot their empty high street.

32:19Ambition Lawrence Weston:This is an Antidote Studio and immediate production. It is produced, written and directed by Matt Golding and me, Jess Vinderveer, with additional writing by Marianne Pasha. Our editor and line producer is Alex Shannon. Additional editing by Kristen Monats. Sound design by Steve Rafter. Our executive producers are Michelle Whitehead and Ben Uad.

32:38Mark Pepper:We'd love it if you could take a minute to give us a five-star review on Apple or Spotify.

32:42Ambition Lawrence Weston:And remember, the stories we tell ourselves shape what we believe our future can be. So if you found this podcast inspiring and want to do one thing to change the world today, tell someone else about it. And let's grow the momentum for change.