Town Anywhere: Imagining a Thriving Future for Leytonstone
Town Anywhere Leytonstone
On 7th March 2026, about 50 people from Leytonstone’s community came together to imagine what a thriving, sustainable future for our town could look like. In a day long process expertly facilitated by Lucy Neal and Nathalie Holloway, we time travelled together into 2036, where we created a bold new vision for Leytonstone.
What we did in 2036
Small groups of people came together as new neighbours, and got to know each other.
“I was in a group with a 13 year old boy and a sculptor.” Mary (ex teacher)
We created imaginary neighbourhoods and environments where we could all flourish.
Some key themes in a flourishing town
We worked together to contribute our ideas around some key themes, including
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Food: Growing, sourcing, supplying, processing, selling, cooking, sharing
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Health: Physical and mental, caring, wellbeing, solidarity, flourishing
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Governance: Community decision making, law, rights (of humans and wider nature), justice
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Economy: Flow and exchange, goods, services, give and gain, local enterprises (sourcing, exchanging, selling, sharing, gift
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Arts: Design, making, creativity, play, creating, innovating
Creating ventures together
We each created a role for ourselves in the new Leytonstone, and came together with others of similar interest to design and build a new venture. We could feel the energy in the room as everyone collected cardboard boxes and sticks and began to construct a wide variety of buildings, roads, wind turbines and nature corridors. . .
Ventures included:
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The Lost Skills Hub: an intergenerational skills exchange
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Hollow Ponds Arts Hub: to let people experience and create art in nature
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The Welcome Wagon: A place for people to talk, bringing people together with food and drink
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The Groove Grove: A space for people to experiment and play with music and dance
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Interchange Anywhere: a multi modal accessible travel transition experience
The official opening
The Mayor of Leytonstone 2036 declared the town open! We visited each other’s ventures and discovered ways we could work together, creating a community network.
Finally, we wrote a postcard from the future to our 2026 self, before time travelling back.
Follow up events
Various follow up meetings have taken place, involving both participants and others who weren’t able to attend. Interest and momentum has developed around some of the ideas, and brought people together to move things forward.
The event on 7th March was filmed, and there will be a screening during the Leytonstone Festival, on 4th July.
A full report of the event is being written and will be available on this website.
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