OUR STORY

Clapton Commons was set up in 2013 by a small group of neighbours with the shared aim of improving their local neighbourhood for the common good of all residents.

Mike’s mum

Actually what happened was this.

Mike’s mother was in her 90s and he wanted to find someone to help her go for a short walk each day. Although Jewish by birth and atheist by inclination Mike decided to reach out and ask the local vicar, William, if there was anyone in his congregation who might like to help.

No one came forward. But at the same time both felt that there must be people who lived locally who could. Some might call this the crisis of adult social care, but at a very human scale it set up a puzzle that needed to be solved – the challenge of Mike’s mum.

Liberty Hall

They recognised that people did not really know each other as neighbours and consequently local ‘need’ was not in touch with local ‘resource’.

To attempt to build these connections, together with a few neighbours, they set up Clapton Commons.

At the same time when they looked around the area they realised that there were very few local spaces where people could come together to get to know each other and access the untapped resources available across the community.

Just at this moment Hackney invited expressions of interest for the abandoned toilet block on Clapton Common, which seemed like a perfect opportunity to turn this derelict building into a community asset that would be open to everyone. The plan for Liberty Hall was hatched.

Over the last six years, Clapton Commons has been working to deliver this project, whilst at the same time building its network, supporters and vision along the way.

Clapton Commons became a registered charity in 2020.

OUR VISION

A stronger community, working together for the common good of all its residents

OUR MISSION

To discover, celebrate and connect the assets present in our neighbourhoods.

our people

Joe Walker - Interim Director

Joe started with us as our new director in January 2022. He has over twenty years experience as a community development practitioner, activist and campaigner working in the UK voluntary/third sector, international development sector and politics. He has spent a significant amount of time working in Hackney, East London in the voluntary and community sector, and until December 2021 led the community work at the Round Chapel Old School Rooms in Clapton, which won the Mayor of Hackney’s Civic Award in 2020/21.

His work in the international development sector has largely focused on child rights and street children in Africa. He’s worked for Oxfam, Amos Trust and also co-founded street children charity Street Action, supporting and partnering with street children movements and initiatives in South Africa, Burundi and Kenya. Joe’s also worked on a range of policy issues relating to global education and child rights in his role as an advisor to former prime minister Gordon Brown.

Joe’s work in the voluntary sector includes charity governance experience, having served as a trustee on a number of UK and international charities. He is currently a trustee of Hackney Doorways and Surfers Not Street Children and is also co-Chair of a local school in Hackney.

Joe lives in Hackney with his wife and two children.

Marcus Duran - Community Builder

Marcus has been with Clapton Commons since 2018. 

For 15 years he has been working through a variety of roles for the community and voluntary sector, serving communities and neighbourhoods in Tower Hamlets, Islington and Hackney. He is passionate about working to improve the conditions in which neighbours of all backgrounds meet, relate and act together. 

Inspired by this part of Hackney, Marcus has been active in the Stamford Hill and the Clapton Common neighborhoods for almost a decade, firstly as a Community Organiser with London Citizens and then with Our Lady’s High School, where he successfully fundraised and delivered a three year community engagement programme for all sixth-formers. He helped to support the actions that led to the successful fundraising and transformation of the Liberty Hall building on Clapton Common.

When he is not at Clapton Commons Marcus works as a professional free-lance photographer. 

Trustees

William Taylor

William Taylor is the parish priest at St Thomas’ Clapton Common and was a founding director of Clapton Commons.

He has a professional doctorate in the civic practice of text study between Christians, Jews and Muslims (scriptural reasoning) from Princeton theological seminary in the United States and he helped to set up the Jewish Christian forum in Stamford Hill in 2012. Previously he worked as a research fellow at the St Ethelburga’s centre for reconciliation and peace in the city of London and a university chaplain. 

Over the course of sixteen years, from 2001, he served three terms as a councillor in the City of London and in 2014 he became the first Labour councillor ever elected to Guildhall. His book ‘this bright field’ about Spitalfields in the east end was published by Methuen in 2000 and was “paperback of the week” on Radio 4’s open book. He reviews books for the FT and blogs at www.hackneypreacher.com

William is acting chair of Clapton Commons, and oversees community relations, including organising work, as well as the charity's relationship with funders.

Pauline Campbell

Pauline Campbell is a senior litigation lawyer for a large local authority.  She was an accredited local government trainer for five years, training lawyers from across the country on litigation law. She has had a successful legal career, winning litigation team of year in 2016, and being shortlisted for solicitors journal awards, and the lawyer of the year in the law society’s excellence awards.  

Pauline has a great fondness and connection to Clapton, having grown up on Spring Hill, with Springfield park as her garden and Liberty Hall, being a constant landmark from her front room window.  She has been involved in Clapton Commons 2018 when she led successful community fundraising events for the Liberty Hall Spacehive. Pauline became a trustee of Clapton Commons in 2020 to assist and seek advice where necessary in a legal capacity.

Pauline is also an avid writer, having letters published in the law gazette, as well as recently publishing a short story titled Rice and Peas and Fish and Chips, a memoir about a black British family growing up in Britain. She is now working on a novel of the same topic that has been commissioned for publication in 2021. She also is a member of Be That Change, an organisation who work towards tackling racism within the local community. 

Holly-Gale Millette 

Dr Holly-Gale Millette is an Academic currently employed at the University of Southampton. She also works as a research fellow internationally, as a visiting lecturer for various London universities, and has been very active as a lecturer in the free university movement. Her research and writing is as a transatlantic cultural and social historian with a firm interest in identity theory and the performances of transgression and liminality. 

An experienced trustee with a professional skillset who has lived locally for 25 years, she holds a unique and abiding connection to Clapton. Holly-Gale recently joined the board of trustees for Clapton Commons as Secretary, and brings a focus on Community Outreach and Risk Management to the group.

Outside academia she has experience as a writer (social impact, heritage strategy, business innovation and community value consultation), as a performer (west end, performance art, devised and site specific and classical) and as an organiser (union rep, political agitator, travellers movement). 

Will Bradley

Will Bradley is a principal policy officer at the Greater London Authority, working in the office of the Deputy Mayor for Transport focussing on getting more people walking and cycling across the city. He represents London on c40’s walking & cycling network, collaborating with cities around the world to share best practice and ideas for accelerating climate action.  

He previously worked at the think tank Demos, researching and writing about a wide range of social policy issues, which included running the secretariat for the commission on assisted dying.

Will grew up in Devon and studied at University of Cambridge and UCL, where he researched and wrote about the gentrification of Broadway Market. 

Will is a passionate urbanist who brings an environmental focus to his role as a trustee for Clapton Commons.