[Music playing] Dave: This is Shaping Places, the podcast where we meet the people helping to shape the world around us, and ask them to reflect on the places that have shaped them. I'm Dave Erasmus, speaker, coach, and thinker, and I enjoy turning big questions into impactful projects for others. I'm usually joined by my co-host Matt Mason, Head of Innovation & Skills at The Crown Estate, but he's away this week. He'll be back in the next episode. And together, we work with The Conduit on impact and sustainability. Our guest today is Bex Trevalyan, a social entrepreneur driven by the power of community. She's the co-founder of Library of Things, helping neighbours borrow useful tools and kits instead of buying. She's a co-founder of Platform Places, a collaboration unlocking underused town centre buildings for social good. From mud pie childhoods in the Lancashire Hills to rewiring consumer habits on London's high streets, Beck's work asks a simple urgent question: how do we unlock space so communities can thrive? Today, we'll explore the places that shaped her, how sharing turns passive consumers into active citizens, and what it takes to open doors literally for the projects our neighbourhoods need. Welcome. Bex: Thanks, Dave. Good to be here. Dave: Today, we're missing Matt Mason from The Crown Estate, but we're going to collude with him later. And so, take us back to the start. Where are you from, Bex? Where did it all begin? Bex: I'm from Lancashire, from a town called Charlie, and I spent my early childhood years in a tiny hamlet just outside this industrial town. And it was up in the hills, and I was eating mud pies and making dens, and going hiking and watching birds with my dad. That was me, nature kid. And I moved to the town when I was eight, and I think, always been embodied by the Lancashire soul of the earth. The good sense of humour, down-to-earth, there's no airs and graces in Charlie. Do you know what I mean? So, that's been a strong part of who I am and chatting to everyone and saying hi. I think that's always been important. Dave: And was it a friendly environment? Bex: Yeah, it was. I even notice now when I'm heading home to Lancashire, if I get on the platform that takes me to Manchester and takes me north, people will start smiling and saying hello. I can tell that in London, the difference in energy. So, that was an important part of shaping me growing up. Dave: And you went to the town? Bex: Yeah, I went to school in a town nearby. I grew up without many places to hang out, I've got to say. As a teenager, there was the park, we went to the retail park and sat in Starbucks and went to the cinema, and went bowling. But there weren't many places to hang out and enjoy the towns. There was nowhere in the town centre to go. And my biggest ambition when I was a teenager was to leave Charlie. Which, going back now, is probably unfair to the town, but it was more a feeling of ÒThere's nothing here for me.Ó Dave: And were you still maintaining the birdwatching and hanging out with your dad in the hills, or was it overridden by visits to the Odeon? Bex: There was definitely more pizza and cinema as a teenager. But I was really lucky in that my family loved travelling, and my mom is from Australia, and so I spent a bit of time (very occasionally, really, because it's so far away) visiting the rainforest in Australia and The Great Barrier Reef, and having these mind-blowing, world-shifting experiences as quite a young person. That really gave me this deep love and awe at the ecosystemÕs natural world that we're a part of. Dave: So, that's quite a dichotomy to be sort of on one side in Charlie, and got to get out of Charlie. On the other side, your mom is from Australia, so you've got that kind of couldn't-be-more-global sense of identity at the same time as being sort of hyperlocal. Bex: It did give me a sense of expansion and desire to travel and experience other cultures and places. Dave: And was that normal amongst your friends? Was it a private school, was it a state school? Was it a tough upbringing? What kind of thing are we picturing here? Bex: Yeah, it was a state school as a young kid and a village school with about 30 of us, to be honest, then a private school when I was a bit older. But nothing big and fancy, very much still felt part of Bolton. And I was probably a bit different in the sense of adventure and wanting to leave Lancashire and explore further afield. A lot of people I was at school with are still there now, which has a beauty in many ways. Dave: Do you think that that small school environment might have affected you somehow? And was there a strong sense of community there of bonding? Because that's quite unusual, to be part of such a small school, I'd imagine. Bex: I think so. I think it felt very safe. It felt very familiar. You knew everyone in the town and in the village, in the school. Yeah, I'm trying to picture actually where there was that first feeling of belonging and being a real part of a place. It's probably younger than I remember. But I actually imagine living in small communities was a part of that. And yearning for that actually when I found myself later on in the big city. And seeking out hubs and places where you could still have that feeling. Dave: Were you getting into projects? Were you finding yourself as a 12-year-old or whatever it might be, creating things? Or did this sort of founder energy that you seem to be operating with now come later for you? Bex: Good question. I was definitely hard-working. I loved school. I got involved in loads of stuff at school. Part of the orchestra. Was part of a few sports teams, I loved running, loved getting involved in stuff. I think it was more that and- Dave: An active community member in lots of diverse ways. Bex: I was definitely drawn to helping to lead and drive stuff. I was excited by that. Dave: And then take us on from there. Bridge the gap for us from there to the beginning of the Library of Things. What kind of journey took you across that terrain? Bex: I had a year out travelling around, again, bits of Australia and New Zealand, but also South America, learning Spanish. I was really passionate about languages and bridging cultures, listening to what we can pick up about a culture from its language and vice versa. So, I spent some time in Argentina and Peru and Ecuador teaching English and spending a lot of time, again, in big or inspiring landscapes, hiking a lot of mountains. Dave: And what did you find out about language and what it can tell us about the culture and such? Bex: I think that was school. I was just always excited by French and German at school, and an occasional French exchange trip, which took us into the middle of absolutely nowhere for slightly harrowing experiences around. But still, meeting people different from me. I think I was drawn to that. And at university, I studied languages, French and German. Spent a year in Paris as part of that. Was working for a slightly dysfunctional technology company, if I'm honest, but learnt a lot of quite filthy French, how to É remember arriving there speaking this literary French that the folks in the office just laughed at me for. It was the equivalent of ÒGood day to the fine fellowsÓ in French. And they quickly schooled me on how people actually speak. And yeah, a lot of joy and freedom actually in being 21 and in Paris in a new place, and exploring and creating a new identity through a different language. Which I found interesting. At university (it was Cambridge), there was quite a strong pressure to join the milk round and get a grad scheme at the big consultant firms or Unilever or law or whatever it was. And I was listening to that, and I was listening to my dad saying to me, ÒYeah, go and get some real-world experience, Rebecca. Go and earn your stripe somewhere, and then you can do what you care about later.Ó And I think that spirit lasted about four weeks for me as I left uni. I'd signed up to a sales internship and managed about four weeks of that, and just thought, ÒActually, I can't give my 20s to something I don't care about. I don't have it in me actually.Ó Dave: So, what had you developed through your adventures in university? What had you developed as this sort of sense of passion and what you cared about? How would you have described it then? Bex: Actually, at uni I came across social enterprise as a thing and ended up doing an internship at an organisation called ClearlySo, which was matching impact investment with social enterprise, and just thinking, ÒOh, this is this really great combination of solving these big environmental social problems we all know exist with a creative entrepreneurial spirit.Ó And that was the first name I'd heard given this was 10, 15 years ago now. And so, I'd come across this, and this was in the back of my mind. As well as really a passion and love for ecosystem's natural world. And having seen these documentaries about the Amazon being destroyed to fuel our consumers' lifestyles in the global north. And just thinking, ÒWell, what do I do? Do I go and chain myself to trees in the Brazilian Amazon, or do I try and rewire our consumer system here?Ó Are we actually the problem before I jump in and start doing some slightly colonial international development? Dave: Meddling. Bex: Yeah, and I really had that sense of equity and what is mine to change. Dave: But where did that come from, though? It sounds like a delightful upbringing. It sounds like lots of mixed and varied experiences. There's some sort of sense of responsibility that seems to have grown in you even by this time, and I just can't quite place yet where you think it came from. Would you have something to say about that? Bex: I think being a young adult, growing up with images of what felt like the world burning. And feeling like É can I swear? Dave: Yeah, go for it. Bex: ÒShit, this is what we're inheriting.Ó And I love these places. I have this profound sense of attachment to the species, the colours the habitats that have co-evolved with us over millennia. Who are we to destroy them in a heartbeat? Can we do something different? As humans, we are more intelligent than this. So, I think it came from this anger (if I'm honest), this burning rage. What I was seeing humans were doing to the planet and their places. And at the same time, this strong sense of hope at what could be. And I think that tension was the motivation, was the driver throughout and still is. Dave: Well, it sounds that love, maybe that has something to do with the birdwatching in the hills with your dad at the beginning. That's amazing. So, then you've done your languages degree, your dad's saying, ÒGo get some real-world experience in Deloitte or something.Ó You're like, ÒI think I need to follow my passion.Ó Take us on. Bex: I signed up for a year-long course in Leadership for Sustainable Development run by an NGO called Forum for The Future. They've sadly wrapped it up, but it was this incredible work-based leadership programme, which was a master's but was for work placements at very different corporates, local governments, startups, looking at how you do sustainable leadership in these different contexts. And they brought in leaders from banks, from renewable energy, from big communications campaigners to give us this really applied sense of how do you do systems change, and in the flawed realities of organisational cultures and institutions, and how do you actually shift hearts and minds. And we were doing things like business plans and Dragon's Den pitches instead of dissertations. It was really hands-on. It was the most incredible learning experience I've ever had. Such a privilege to do it. And I think there, I really felt that my biggest gift that I could bring was in the startup fast-moving space. Quite action-oriented, impatient, no time to lose. And really felt this big potential for quick movement there. So, I was starting to emerge from that programme, and with a couple of friends, we'd been talking about this side hustle. What could we do that would start to address some of these big challenges we cared about, but in a really practical, quick-moving, creative way? And came across this idea of a library of things, this library of stuff that anyone can come and use in a neighbourhood. And whether it's drills, sound systems, sewing machines. And we saw that happening in Berlin and Toronto, and we said, ÒHey, this should happen in London.Ó And we got started with a group of friends and neighbours. That was 2014, and yeah, we've grown it from there. Dave: Out of all the side hustles you could have imagined, why did Library of Things feel like the thing that was going to connect to your values or help shape a place in the name of this podcast in a way that you were excited about? What was it about it? Bex: I think I was initially drawn to it for some of the reasons I've talked about. This potential to rewire consumerism. What if we weren't buying stuff from Amazon and Argos? What if we just shared stuff that we already have? We know in the last six years, we consumed 75% of what we consumed in the entire 20th century. So, we've got way more stuff than we need, what if we just shared it? Simpler. So, I was drawn to that, and what that means for the Amazon rainforest and The Great Barrier Reef and the ecosystems that we can allow to breathe. Because we're not mining and extracting and polluting and manufacturing. So, that was the first draw-in. And then what surprised me as I was standing in that dusty side room that we transformed into this makeshift library of things was, ÒOh wow, look how powerful this tiny space is at brokering relationships and conversations.Ó I remember two people meeting there who had lived on the same street for five years and had never met before. They just connected over ladders. One had one, one needed one. Dave: And this might be so obvious to you, but why does that matter? What's the value for society in actually connecting up those people on the street that haven't met before? Why does showing a project has a higher level of interaction of local community than not doing it or another project? Why do you think that that actually is a social good? Bex: Well, the wider project this was part of actually did measure those metrics and looked at all of these indicators. And across the board, people's health outcomes went up, improved, so they felt safer in their neighbourhood. They were less likely to go to the doctor. Less likely to feel a sense of fear of crime. To look out for each other, look out for each other's kids, care for each other, help share resources. I guess it's all the behaviours that we associate with the place that we want to live. And beyond just the basics of belonging and safety, also this spirit of moving from being this passive consumer to an active citizen. And with all of these tiny, practical, everyday participation opportunities, people could step into that role of being a citizen, and helping to shape their place. Dave: So, not only were you actively engaging with this consumerist mindset, but by doing so, increasing the amount of interactions that local community are having, which had health benefits and things along that side as well. It's basically hitting on all the key things there. So, I can see why it's exciting for you. And so, where's that got to now then, 10 years on? Bex: Well, we now have 20 sharing libraries across London in different neighbourhoods. Integrated within libraries, shopping centres, community reuse hubs, arts venues so that now 30,000 Londoners are sharing 600 quality tools rather than buying them and throwing them away. And that's meant hundreds of tonnes of waste prevented, over a thousand tonnes of emissions prevented. And London is saving over 7 million pounds by borrowing things rather than buying them new. Dave: Well, congratulations. That's awesome. Bex: Thank you. Dave: And those little spaces, because they're quite varied. I'm interested, do you struggle more to get tools, items, or do you struggle more to get spaces? Tell us a bit about that. Bex: The space was always a challenge. From day one, it was the hardest thing, and it's what has then driven me to go on to do platform places, which we'll talk about in a bit. But that was always a real challenge. We spent two years looking for our first space. We were shown leaking garages by councils who still wanted rent. And we were shown these tiny cupboard-sized shop fronts that had a 50 grand a year rent expectation. We were shown meanwhile spaces that still wanted us to invest quite a lot in refurb and then might evict us with 28 daysÕ notice because it was time to build the luxury flats. And we ended up buying shipping containers and putting them in a car park. That was the next stage of our testing. And then pivoting to make a really tiny version in lockers of a library of things so that it would occupy this tiny footprint that could integrate into an underused space in libraries and shopping centres. And that was all driven by availability of space. And how hard it is to secure affordable and secure and long-term property for social enterprise, community-led organising. And so, we always knew that sharing stuff isn't inherently profitable. You don't make loads of money by sharing and affordably renting a drill for a few days to someone. So, it's not a money spinner, but it drives footfall, it creates impact, and we know that. And so, the offer to these spaces is not a financial one, it's a social and environmental one. Except in the case where these spaces are independent community-run venues and we offer a contribution as a ÒThanks for having us. We know that this is valuable space.Ó So, up in Norwood Library Hub in Crystal Palace, for example, we pay £150 a month. And The Baths in Hackney Wick. Amazing community arts venue. Dave: But I guess also there's (as you say) an interaction value. What you do generates more interactions with the community. And if that's near a brand or a space or a shop that wants to have more interaction with the community, then that's say Ð yeah, maybe that's a social value or something É but it might actually help them sell more things as well. Like, any kind of advertising works in that way, doesn't it? Bex: Totally. Dave: But as you say, the key is in measuring that metric of interaction. Because that's where the value lies. You're just trying to give it to the community that value, instead of giving it to shareholders of a business. Bex: Exactly. We partner with Ingka Centres, who own the shopping centre in Hammersmith where there's an IKEA and Lidl. We've got a Library of Things alongside those retail giants. And they see the value in the PR, the extra activity and vibrancy and footfall and interest that that tiny little set of lockers brings. And we stand surreptitiously to the side of these malls, and we see people stopping and chatting and looking at what it is and engaging with the maintenance technician that might be there or the community activator that might be there promoting something or doing a skills-share demonstrator. And all of that brings value to that hub, whatever it is. Whether it's got an IKEA and Lidl in it, or whether it's got a community event space and a sauna. Dave: Can you think of a story where somebody came to borrow a drill, and they ended up collaborating with their neighbour down the road they had never met and ended up building something or creating something great together because they entered into this slightly different wiring of how to be together? Bex: We get those stories every week. People coming to Library of Things to create a community garden or a little shared space between houses or at the back of an alley somewhere that gets fly-tipped that could do with some planters. Or there's an idea for a street party, and they can get the speaker and the gazebo and the party kits. Or their neighbourÕs got a bad back, and so they've borrowed some gardening tools to help them out. Or neighbours clubbing together because they can't afford it separately, but they can together. Library of Things can help inspire and practically enable other community hubs through just being an easy shared resource. But it can also benefit from other community hubs and projects. Signposting or helping crowdfund or bringing new people to it. So, it's definitely reciprocal. I've always said that Library of Things is not about it being a standalone project, it's about existing in an ecosystem alongside fixing factories and shared community pantries and fridges and other sources of shared textile hubs and baby equipment libraries. It really comes in with a spirit of ÒLet's reinvent our whole neighbourhood actually.Ó And it's something that speaks to the neighbourhood level of organising. Dave: So, what's the elevator pitch for Platform Places? Bex: So, we say that Platform Places is a national cross-sector collaboration with a mission to unlock town centre buildings for amazing ideas. And Platform Places has become this national cross-sector collaboration between community leaders doing projects on the ground, like Library of Things, but could be a whole range of others, between councils and between private asset owners. The Crown Estate, legal in general, Transport for London's property arm, many, many others. It literally just started as a series of facilitated Zoom calls. And a group of partners that came together that said, ÒHow do we do town centre property differently?Ó And it started with (as these things normally do) a conversation between a small group of us. I had obviously had this lived experience of struggling to get into any high street space for Library of Things, but for impact urban networks of community businesses I was part of and heard all these horror stories from all my peers around the country. So, I was there with this burning rage, like, ÒUgh, how do we do this differently?Ó Then there was Vidhya Alakeson, CEO of Power to Change, which is a community business funder. And she was saying actually something very similar, ÒLook what our high streets could be if we were to shift who owns and controls our neighbourhoods.Ó And then we connected with British Property Federation and the High Streets Task Force, representing some of the private asset owners and new local representing governments. And we said, ÒWell, who's not at the table? How do we convene this really diverse mix of people and genuinely do systems change with everyone at the table?Ó Not just in the community sector, who are very guilty of just being at the table, banging the drum, wishing the council was there. But actually, what does it look like if the private asset owners are at the table and there's relationships and trust? And so, that metaphor of the dinner table has been kind of the founding spirit of it. And so, that was 2021. And that emerged then from lockdown into a group of friendships, unlikely friendships. We emerged out of lockdown and did two amazing visits to Bristol and Liverpool to look at this work in practice. Where are people changing who owns and controls the property in our neighbourhoods? And what impact is that having? Then from there, we had basically ended up designing a programme or a series of interventions that on a local level can shift who owns and controls our neighbourhood. Everything from convening that initial dinner table locally (with all those stakeholders) to then mapping who owns the high street. It's actually really hard to get that data. To then saying, ÒWell, which of these 150 buildings in Wandsworth town (for example), which of these would be amazing community hubs? Which should we strategically target for local ownership? And then how do we go about unlocking those buildings and transforming them into thriving community hubs?Ó Dave: What kind of property have you found is the one that tends to be enough of this and not enough of that, and you're actually able to use it? Bex: Because thereÕs so many different types of property and property ownership. There are not many clear patterns. Obviously, there are some tried and tested routes, like a community asset transfer, where a council-owned building is transferred into a local community trust or entrepreneurial community organisation that already exists locally. So, that is one tried and tested route. There's another, which is the private buyout. So, a community organisation will raise funds to buy a building. So, that happened on Union Street in Plymouth. Nudge Community Builders just saw a derelict pub empty for five years called The Clipper. I might be wrong on that number of years, but it had been a while, and let's buy it. And this group of local residents bought out the building and transformed it into hubs for social enterprise and affordable housing upstairs. Dave: Again, the obvious thing to say is the community has organised itself. It's mobilised itself. And in order to create an opportunity with the existing owner, council or otherwise, there has to be a level of pre-work from the community. It's not just going to jump into their laps. You have to do the work before the opportunity is ready. Bex: A hundred per cent. It's about being organised. It's about having the capacity to be at the dinner table and having the confidence and the language and the brokerage and facilitation to be able to be there. Dave: What's the biggest challenge you face then trying to unlock these spaces? Is there (again, going back to that two-sided equation) more communities that are well organised than there are owners willing to collaborate? Or actually, do you have more council buildings and stuff than you have well-organised communities ready to take their ownership? Bex: Well, demand is way bigger than supply. So, demand for affordable space. Affordable, secure, long-term space is enormous. 70% of community organisations say they struggle to access space to start or grow. And the supply is really small. The supply of fit-for-purpose affordable space. Dave: Where they're not trying to charge you for this leaky garage. Bex: Where there is a gap and there is a challenge on both sides is in communities being organised and prepared, as you were saying. And there is a gap in funding to enable that leadership to happen. So that's a gap we're trying to plug. Dave: To sit on your Zoom call for a year, you are either paying for yourself to be on that Zoom call or someone's paying for you. Bex: Or furlough means you can. Dave: Or furlough, yeah, exactly. But that's right. But that's a vital piece of the puzzle for grassroots people. Who's paying for that developmental process, basically, between the appetite and requirement and the actual readiness? Because that's not a given. Bex: And with private asset development, you have development capital in the back pocket of developers. We know that development time is long and requires a lot of different skill sets and feasibility studies and planning applications and all of that. But that is not paid, that is not funded in a community context. So, that is a huge challenge, and that's one gap we're trying to fill. And then on the other side of the table, there is a real challenge in finding willing owners who are genuinely motivated by social impact and wanting to do something different. To not chase the highest bidder. To not sit and land bank and wait until the value goes up and sell out and cash in. Dave: And have you had any dealings with The Crown Estate? Seeing as we're in a podcast, Shaping Places, that's in partnership with The Crown Estate. Bex: The Crown Estate were on our very initial round table before we even started that 12 months. The Crown Estate were there and definitely heard how much of a priority this is for them. One of the biggest surprises for me in this process has been the unlikely allies in the institutional asset owners. With clear, genuine motivation and ability around social value. Dave: What do you see as the biggest blocker for institutional owners in order to open up the floodgates so we could get more of this vision becoming a reality? Bex: I think what we hear from institutional owners with these ESG mandates is, ÒWhat impact can you give? Can you quantify it?Ó And there's almost this cart before the horse. Can you tell me what the impact is before you've thought about who you're going to put in there and what their impact is? Which I totally understand and respect, and that is part of our work, is to make sure that that measurement is in place. I think there's also a mindset shift, though, in moving from, ÒWell, we have two units that are meanwhile used for our communities, which we will ultimately move if a better paying occupy comes along.Ó Moving from that to, ÒWell, ongoing, we have 20% of our portfolio that is forever free for community organisations,Ó or not forever free necessarily, but a concessionary rent, or a turnover rent, or a profit share. Dave: I'm transposing what you are saying to be instead of giving, your charitable donations being emotion-fuelled or in the moment, when you are asked, it's dedicating 5% of your income or your revenue, let's say, to give away. Creating a pot that then changes the demand instead of it being, ÒOh, we're trying to squeeze it in,Ó you've already created structure so it's easy for these new projects to flow in. Bex: Yes, and beyond that. What if we had to do this as a way of being resilient and prepared for the numerous crises that are coming that are already here? And what if that was the best way for us all to make places that we urgently need to live in now? WeÕre going to be in 2¡ of warming by 2050, and what that means for our ability to survive heat and floods. And we know that there's a reasonable chance that Reform will be in power at the next election. I heard Indie Johar say that the other day. And seeing what's happening in the States, do these institutional owners who steward our wealth and pension funds not have a strong fiscal duty actually to serve the future that we all want to live in? And flipping from a, Òthis is a small charitable actÓ to Òthis is critical self-preservation for all of us.Ó And just instilling this sense of urgency and responsibility into some of the biggest owners in our country. And that being mandated, that's where I want us to move to. Dave: No, I love that. But before we wrap up, if you and your movement of circular economy that you're a part of and your projects and everyone succeeds at scale, how would that look and feel? Walk us down a high street somewhere, tell us where it is. I want to imagine your world if everybody sort of bowed to BexÕ will, what would it look and feel like? Bex: I'm going to use the example of Brixton because that's where I spent a lot of time doing community-organising work. I think walking down the Brixton that I'd to see, that I know is possible, I think what we see and feel are all sorts of arts and music venues. There are a couple of them, but there are more of them in this world. There are reuse and repair hubs, sharing all the resources, tools, toys, technology, textiles, affordable wellbeing spaces. There are blue and green spaces everywhere, spaces to be cool in summer and warm in winter, and spaces that encourage sharing and coming together. There are probably emergency organising spaces, there are reading rooms, spaces to learn, skill-sharing hubs, maker spaces. I could list all of these all day: affordable childcare, affordable housing, genuinely affordable housing. And what is happening beneath the surface is a couple of things. And one is that there's this flourishing of relationships and trust between different types of people. That is in contrast to the polarisation that we're starting to feel is possible. But, actually, there's a coming together and a moving together and being really proactive about that and hardwiring that in. And then there's a shift to enable all of this. There's a shift in ownership. Who owns and controls our spaces? And it's shifting from the Texan billionaire that currently owns a whole lot of Brixton, to locally democratically owned and controlled trusts and organisations that can shape the spaces, the physical fabrics, the materials, the relational spaces of Brixton massively in favour of the people that live there. And our vision with Platform Places is that we see one-third of our town centre properties shifting into community ownership. One third in public and one third can stay in private ownership, but critically there is trust partnerships and dinner tables between those three. Dave: I love it. That's amazing. Thank you so much for taking me on that journey just then. I had my eyes shut, and I was just basking in your Brixton for a minute there. On that note, tell us some links, some websites, some places we can go to see more of your work and others you're connected to. Bex: Yep, platformplaces.com, libraryofthings.co.uk, and there is an emerging movement around Platform Places called the Mycelial Network for community asset developers. People already doing this work in neighbourhoods around England. It doesn't have a website yet, it's emergent. But there'll be more online on that soon. Dave: And if someone's listening to this and they're excited right now about what you're saying, what's one action they could just go and do now that might crack the door open into this world that you are alluding to? Bex: A conversation with someone outside of their world to ask, ÒWhat would they change about their place if they could?Ó I like the bridging, what can we learn from the edges of our current comfort zone and current community? What can we learn by really listening? Not listening for what we want to respond by saying, but actually listening to the potential of what someone's saying. And I think there's a shift in headspace and attitude and creative potential that comes with that. And maybe that is what we need. We just need to listen. Dave: Bex, thank you so much for coming to talk with us, sharing your story, telling us what's going on, and pointing us where to go next. I'm really excited by the way you articulate the way you'd like to see the world to be. So, all power to your elbow, and hope some good connections come out of this very conversation we've just had. Bex: Thanks, Dave. It's been a pleasure. [Music playing] Dave: Thanks for listening to Shaping Places from The Conduit and The Crown Estate. If you've enjoyed the conversation, follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. For any links or resources mentioned today, check the show notes in your podcast app. I'm Dave Erasmus, with Matt Mason, and we record at The Conduit in London. Until next time, take care of yourselves and look after each other. 1