Marine Dream Hub
St Ives
Coastal hub brings together marginalised communities to make the most of their marine environment and boost their local economy.
Tassy Swallow is a professional surfer and the founder of a surf school in St Ives. In 2018, she worked with the New Economics Foundation to turn her school into a Marine Dream Hub, one of three coastal hubs bringing together marginalised communities to make the most of their marine environment and boost their local economy.
Swallow first started coaching girls in Cornwall to fund her professional surfing career. She has represented Great Britain at under-18 level in five successive World Junior Surfing Games but she noticed that back in St Ives, there were fewer opportunities for people like her.
She found that teaching opened up another side to the sport. Through surfing, she helped girls learn to have a healthier relationship with their bodies and better self-confidence, both in and out of the water.
The Marine Dream Hub is based in a heritage building on a cliff by the beach that Swallow has crowdfunded to renovate. It will act as a club house for Tassy’s Surf Ratz, a group for girls aged 6 – 16 which aims to improve their self-worth by teaching them about surfing. It will also be an events hub in St Ives for the marine scene.
“It’s an arty town, it’s positive but the whole marine side of the town goes underlooked,” Swallow told Far Nearer. “My hope is to run workshops to teach people about the sea, especially kids who don’t know much about the marine environment.”
Tags Community ownership
New rules needed
Policies that can help unleash the potential of this or similar initiatives across the UK.
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Expand the community and co-operative banking sector
Stakeholder banks can be mandated to serve the public interest or local communities rather than simply to maximise returns. -
Create affordable workspaces
Affordable workspaces are essential to the survival of independent businesses. -
Turn RBS into a network of local banks
New banks would be owned in trust for the public benefit and mandated to lend only within their local area. -
Implement a Blue New Deal for coastal communities
Put coastal communities in control so they can shape local priorities, value their greatest asset and revitalise the UK coast. -
Create devolved ‘just transition’ funds
Government should devolve a proportion of its Green New Deal budget to support local just transition plans. -
Reverse austerity
Austerity has pummelled living standards and public services. Now is the time to end it.
