April 2023. Just Space has agreed with Michael Ball of the Waterloo Community Development Group that he will do coordination and media work for us.
Michael is a seasoned and experienced campaigner, skilled in community development and building coalitions to further community interests. He has worked with the WCDG for many years and led it for the last 20. He writes:
“I’m delighted to join Just Space as community co-ordinator. I’ve always been driven by people and communities thriving where too often they have been denied a say in the planning and development of this city. That has to change. I’m looking forward to ensuring that the planners and politicians hear the voices they have all too often missed.”
He is taking over the coordination role from Richard Lee who has nurtured and supported Just Space since its foundation in 2008, from just a handfull of organisations to today’s large network which saw about 60 community groups active in the examination in public of the 2021 London Plan and a similar number generating the community-led Recovery Plan for London, all created through online workshops during lockdown, against heavy odds. Richard is not leaving Just Space but withdrawing from coordination to concentrate on a raft of specific projects, most of them spinoffs from Just Space.
Michael Ball is joining us as a self-employed contractor, subject to contract, and his engagement has been made possible by a generous 2-year grant from the Trust for London to whom we are most grateful. The contract has been designed to include work on our media.
His bid was selected from a short-list of 5 excellent proposals, any of which we could have accepted, in response to a call for tenders published here last month.
Summarising his relevant background Michael Ball writes:
I started getting involved in planning issues as a community representative in the 1990s, for my estate TRA and my kid’s school’s PTA. I ended up leading a team in successful campaigns against a project to demolish an estate in Vauxhall, and another to demolish the school.
In 2002 I became Director of WCDG and led successful community campaigns to fight off development over Jubilee Gardens, and get massive investment in extended gardens (opened by the Queen in 2012), and to stop Boris Johnson’s vanity project, the Garden Bridge. We also saw off many inappropriate proposals for the Opportunity Area, and embraced partnerships with other community groups and businesses to get key improvements, such as developing a retail strategy and completely refurbishing the high street.
In all of these cases, and many others I have been involved in, critical to success has been the community’s anger and determination to inspire and bring into reality a more positive and just space.
I most recently appeared as advocate in major public inquiries for 8 Albert Embankment in 2021 (which we won) and for 72 Upper Ground – the former ITV building – (awaiting a decision of the Sec of State).
Michael Ball starts on 17 April and can be contacted at michael-justspace@outlook.com
(later revision)
page checked by M E 27 July 2025
Leave a Reply