Pulross Playground occupies a wedge of land on the margin of a railway embankment in Brixton, south London. A refuge for homeless Londoners at night-time, serious problems with drug-use on the site eventually led the local authority to close the site and put it on the market for development. However, a broad and unlikely coalition of local people came together to block the sale, and claim the site as a cross-community resource. Afro-Caribbean activists brought their determination to build their community; squatters brought their skill in direct action; and recent ‘gentrifiers’ brought their expertise in negotiating with the council and securing funding.

Together they won control of the site from the council and established the Pulross Area Playground Association (PAPA) to maintain and develop the facility. PAPA now not only provides a children’s playground; but also a multi-sports court for local basketball and soccer clubs; a function-room for social events and local groups from ante-natal to continuing education; a garden well-used by local residents and lunchtime office-workers alike; and a sheltered employment scheme for people with learning disabilities.

This is no fairy-tale: tensions and differences between the different groups do exist and persist. But PAPA demonstrates is the possibilities of collective action in a common interest to overcome some of the differences. In this sense it is not a community project at all, it is a cross-community project. Or seen another way, it built a new ‘community of interest’ that crossed the existing borders of different social, economic, and ethnic groups.