INSPIRED by the children of Warrington and their positive messages written in chalk on pavements around the town, activists from Extinction Rebellion (XR) have been engaging in a street art project.
Working independently as individuals, but coordinating their efforts via online meetings, members of the group have been expressing their hopes for the future by adding their works to local trees and parks during their socially distanced exercise periods.
Part of a national campaign called ‘No Going Back’, XR Warrington chose as their theme, What if…? and asked various questions around this, such as; ‘What if… key workers were always valued?’, ‘What if… the air we breathe was always this clean?’ and What if… we put people and planet, before profit?’. These challenges have been hung on trees and sprayed on the paths of the Sankey Valley Park with washable chalk paint.
Paul Sheeky from the group said: “The lockdown has been tough mentally, so we decided to use our creativity to help ourselves through it and also reach out to others and imagine a better world.”
Many towns and cities in the UK and around the world are using the opportunity of quieter streets to reimagine their public spaces. Warrington has some of the highest air pollution in the North West (https://www.warrington-worldwide.co.uk/2020/01/27/warrington-rankedthird-worst-for-deaths-from-deadly-toxins-air-pollution-in-north-west/) and the recent
Central 6 Regeneration Masterplan stated that the ‘highest priority across all wards was a better, cleaner environment – the feeling being that without this baseline quality of place, other improvements would be undermined’.
The XR Warrington art project culminates with the message ‘System Change not Climate Change’ and the creation of a new rainbow cycle path on Crosfield Street. “If London and Manchester can make these positive changes, why can’t Warrington?”
Paul added: “If the council aren’t willing to implement the will of the people, then we’ll have to do it ourselves. Crosfield Street could easily be made one-way to allow more space for cycling and reduce
through traffic and air pollution.”
Nationally, the ‘No Going Back’ campaign aims to encourage a fairer, greener and cleaner way of doing things and to stop subsiding and bailing out the dirty fossil fuel heavy industries that are “harming us and our children, when we should be supporting workers to have fulfilling jobs in ‘green’ industries and sectors2. As part of this XR Warrington will be holding an open-invite online People’s Assembly on the future of Warrington and what changes people would like to see to the town.
Paul continued, “Things have changed a lot over the past couple of months, and for the Council to continue in the same way is short-sighted. The already unpopular Western Link project will carve up green space instead of protecting it and is projected to cost over £200m! For just one tenth of that, you could give a bike to every single person in Warrington. The people really should be consulted again before a project of this scale takes place.”
Details of the XR Warrington People’s Assembly will be published on their social media accounts in due course.
