Building community through environmental regeneration: Operation Groundwork
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: In the 1970s, the Major Urban Fringe Experiment, later known as Operation Groundwork, emerged in response to industrial decline, growing awareness of industry’s environmental impact and grass-roots environmentalism and regeneration activism. Contrary to ideas of concomitant industrial and community decline, Groundwork demonstrates post-industrial regeneration’s community-building potential. Groundwork created bespoke volunteer groups, helped set up others and worked with already existing organizations. Unlike contemporary regeneration initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s, these community links were retained even as Groundwork expanded. This article traces Groundwork’s origins and its launch under Labour in the 1970s, its championing by Conservative Minister Michael Heseltine and its successful expansion from its initial test site in St Helens (Merseyside), to the North-West and then nationwide.
Source: Urban History
Author: Pierre Botcherby
Institution: University of Warwick
Language: English
Subfield: Urban Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,450
OpenAlex ID: W4404488265