The impacts of the current political conjuncture for KPC

This final section situates KPC in the current political conjuncture. In response to Clayton et al (2015), this section sets out how KPC has fared in the context of austerity. Since the current crisis of 2008, the UK been under serious pressure and has faced much restructuring and cutbacks, as the previous section explains. These negative impacts trickle down to the local level as aforementioned; GCC has responded to this financial pressure, which has affected those at the grass roots level, such as KPC. Despite the language, which

‘responsibilises’ citizens and the third sector, the local state is still the body instigating this

process (Blanco et al, 2014), as the case of KPC illustrates in this section. In 2010, in a bid to raise much needed income, GCC's Executive Committee decided to end the

‘Concessionary Rents Policy’ in the city. This meant that voluntary organizations situated in premises’ deemed to be commercial properties would no longer have reduced rental rates.

The impact of the current recession is that the capital receipts targets set by the Council are unlikely to be achieved. The disposal of the commercial investment portfolio is perhaps the only short term solution which is open to the Council to generate very significant capital payments over a very short space of time (Glasgow City Council Executive Committee, 27th November 2009, see appendix)

These properties were also transferred to a private company called City Property (Glasgow) LLP; ‘evolved from the property services previously provided by Glasgow City Council’ (City Property website, 2013). This was in exchange for a large loan from Barclays Bank. City Property appointed the estate agent, Ryden, as external property agents to support the management of this portfolio. It is hard to see how the Community Empowerment Bill fits into this agenda. Furthermore, it clearly demonstrates how local governments can be seen as ‘mediating’ processes of neoliberalisation in the city in unfair and often contradictory ways (Newman, 2014). Organisations across Glasgow have been affected; some faced ‘rent increases of over £20,000, which in turn could lead to the loss of valuable services (Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector website, 2013). Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector added ‘we are very concerned about the impact this policy will have on voluntary and community services in the city’ (2013). Many of the affected organisations simply cannot continue if their rent is increased.

KPC was one of the organisations affected by this new policy. KPC’s peppercorn rent of

£1 per year was set to be extraordinarily increased; after adding large administrative costs to draw up the new lease, this amounted to almost £2750. Despite this rent increase, KPC continued to receive no economic funding for building maintenance and repairs from GCC.

There are only two full time paid employees at KPC; the building manager and the other paid position is split between two cleaners and a treasurer. They are paid solely from revenues raised from public events and hall and studio hire. This affects the capacity for an organisation like KPC to cope ‘in an environment in which their work is championed, but not necessarily supported by those controlling resources’ (Clayton et al, 2015:4).

Following this development, KPC were unhappy about signing the new lease with the Council, partly due to the large financial pressure it would cause and partly due to the rejection of market rationales behind being asked to pay increased rent for nothing other than to prevent eviction. KPC continued to go about daily business and began applying for grants from the national lottery to maintain control of the building. As a result of refusing to sign the new lease, KPC were handed a Notice of Removal on 15^th April 2013, due to be enforced on the 27^th May. This letter stated that ‘because KPC were unsuccessful in obtaining Lottery and other funding’, this ‘may have an impact on the terms and conditions agreed with City Property for the long lease of this property’ (letter from City Property, 15^th April, 2013, see appendix). Thus, KPC would be unable to sign the new lease in any case. As a response, the committee and volunteers set out to begin a new campaign to gather support from the community building users and supporters of KPC. Building manager, Lindsay, sent out a letter to everyone on the mailing list:

For the last 15 months we have tried to talk to the Council / City Property, funders, other agencies and councillors about how we all might work together to secure the long term future of Kinning Park Complex as a community facility. We now have to deal with City Property on behalf of Glasgow City Council. Recently those talks have broken down. Last week, without notice, City Property sent us a Notice of Removal telling us to be out of the building by 27 May.

This City Property letter reminds us that despite the huge efforts made by many in the community to keep this building open and in daily use there is still a long way to go to secure our long-term future and fund the major repairs needed. (Email to all building users, 26^th April, 2013)

The current political conjuncture is once again being negotiated and challenged by those at KPC. ‘The resilience of capitalism is achieved at the expense of certain social groups and regions that bear the costs of periodic waves of adaptation and restructuring’ (MacKinnon and Derickson, 2013:254). Whilst KPC remains strong in a turbulent economic and political landscape, it exemplifies the paradox of contemporary localism(s), in which organisations like KPC mitigate the negative social effects of economic cuts with much needed community provision, but also facilitate these cuts in doing so. KPC highlights the messiness and multiple logics competing at local government level (Blanco et al, 2014)

with Glasgow City Council acting in ways that actually hinder grassroots organisations like KPC (Gray and Porter, 2014) yet rhetorically appear to be encouraging this form of citizen action. In 1996 the community were aware of their contradictory position in both producing an autonomous community space but ironically aiding GCC by taking on the centre, its functions and importantly the running and staffing costs. Currently KPC have a one-year lease with the Council, through City Property and their agents Ryden. There is an option for a 25 year lease, but with no guarantee that rent would not be increased to a commercial level, potentially around £20k. Alternatively, Ryden could even take back the building and the community centre would be shut. Without the 25-year lease however, obtaining grants to carry out the large-scale repairs is impossible. So once again, KPC is suffering the impacts of poor decision making from the City Council, which seem to be also in tension with the recent Community Empowerment Bill, but the ways in which these contradictions will play out remains to be seen.

4.8 Conclusion

From one perspective, the relentlessly parochial nature of the local is said to invite fragmentation, not only limiting the ambitions of those engaged in politics at that level, but also encouraging division and competition between those who should be united in the face of global challenges. From another, local action is understood to make it possible to build movements that can win particular concessions. (Clarke and Cochrane, 2013:10)

In this chapter, localism has been discussed as both a top down form of governance carried out by the state, thus holding GCC to account in orchestrating the local shift to entrepreneurialism. But it has also showed how the local has been the main site of local political contestation (Boyle and Hughes, 1994). Thus localism can also be a progressive grassroots project. I would suggest that spaces such as KPC help instigate progressive localism in four ways. Firstly, by highlighting the plurality and political power of a community, this distinguishes KPC from the passive notion of the local. Secondly, the direct conflict with the Council stresses the overbearing role of local government who often impose top-down, ill thought-through and frankly contradictory strategies. KPC actively challenge notions of community as passive recipients of this urban policy despite their financial impacts. Thirdly, KPC exemplifies progressive localism through its contribution to social justice in the local area and beyond, by providing space for

bottom-up community organising and practices where diverse grobottom-ups and social agendas can be met through childcare and the arts. Finally, KPC has remained physically present on the urban landscape since 1996 and thus provide us with a rare historical trajectory of progressive localism. This contributes to debates on localism, as many accounts fail to pay attention to the long histories of actually existing progressive localism(s). Spaces like KPC, make cities into ‘landscapes of antagonism’ that are ‘formed (and reformed) through the discursive constitution of new subjects and the orchestration of new lines of antagonism, resistance and alignment’ (Newman, 2013:9).

The occupation at KPC celebrates the agency of communities during times of crisis, in a way that acknowledges the inherent contradictions as well as radical potential of such struggles. The complicated relationship between the Council and KPC through time paints a realistic picture of the contradictory nature of local politics, as well as the sustained ingenuity shown by those involved in the project. The diverse coalitions that KPC engenders promote skill learning and sharing – illustrating the resourcefulness and social empowerment at KPC. I have presented the struggle at KPC ‘without overshadowing the exciting activism and politics that occurs in these spaces and their potential to facilitate transformative change’ despite the ‘material and enduring challenges that marginalized communities face’ (MacKinnon and Derickson, 2013:265). KPC is both an important symbolic and a functional community space, and a case study to demonstrate the complexities and contradictions of simultaneously struggling against and providing services autonomously from the state during austere times.

Additionally, the ongoing struggle at KPC from 1996 to the present also allows us to observe multiple urban crises over time as important moments where the fragile and contradictory nature of neoliberalism becomes exposed. This helps to unsettle hegemonic practices and challenge the seeming omnipotence of neoliberalism (Peck and Tickell, 2002). Spaces like KPC have been embedded in an ongoing contestation and negotiation to retain their control, and their experience shows that economic and organizational independence is difficult to achieve and maintain. This takes forward the debates on localism by asking us to consider the multifaceted nature of this concept, reminding us that localism(s) need not be either progressive or regressive; instead, the ‘wider social relations and political strategies are what shape specific forms of spatial politics’ (MacKinnon et al, 2012:11). KPC is situated along a historic trajectory of community struggles in Glasgow and the next chapter discusses the campaign and occupation in more depth to show how

the interactions were influenced by legacies (even memories and representations) from the past (Cochrane, 1993:25). The next chapter also discusses the role of collective histories in the emergence of KPC, taking a historic look at the campaign and eventual occupation at KPC in 1996. Chapter 5 will present a history from below, also taking into account the individual trajectories of those individuals who saved the space from disappearing from the community.