While the COVID-19 outbreak has been a tragedy for the UK, it has also brought the best out of people, drawing on the enormous communal and individual strengths and talents that are passed over day-to-day. This “people-power” is where Mary Darking places her hopes. Reflecting on what she has seen happening in East Brighton over the past few weeks, she thinks it “hasn’t been the story of terrible calamity people expected it to be. It’s been a different story. A really heartening experience.” It’s been the story of a community coming together and taking control of its destiny.

East Brighton is home to Causewayed, a community-owned social movement that challenges health inequalities in East Brighton – a local area that has “the highest number of children and families accessing food banks in the city.”

Causewayed grew out of a project established over a year ago with support from Nesta, that has grown through the drive and determination of its members, all local residents. Darking has been working with them for the past year, and says that when the effects of COVID-19 became apparent in mid-March, “it was as if we had been preparing for something like this all along”.

The immediate issue Causewayed members saw coming was food security, which was already a problem for East Brighton estates – indeed, across the UK, COVID-19 has done most damage where there are already significant health inequalities, poverty and discrimination. It has amplified existing problems.

“There is a lack of food infrastructure for our East Brighton neighbourhoods affected by health inequality” explains Mary. “You can’t easily buy a piece of fresh fruit for your kids on the walk home from school. It's a stark reality - there are three corner shops, but it's hard for them to stock fresh fruit and vegetables. There's a long walk to the supermarket and people can’t afford the bus. So people’s needs are either met, or not, by what's provided in the local area itself.”

A community food initiative was put into action by Causewayed member Bryan Coyle. “Bryan’s focus was already on how to construct a self-sufficient, community-led food infrastructure for the area,” said Mary. “He just had to do it a lot quicker than he imagined!”

Coyle says, “COVID-19 was always going to hit hardest here because there’s a lot of people in short term, insecure, zero hour employment. So these people are not being furloughed. The people in my community are just being put out of work. They’re not getting a percentage of their pay.”

Causewayed member Darren Snow set up a central fund and used that to establish a community kitchen for producing free hot meals and food parcels. “It turns out every block of council housing has its own community room and kitchen - these are assets that had been under dust covers,” recalls Mary. “Bryan went in, pulled off the covers and immediately filled a community room with freezers. Then he started building the supply network for the food.”

By the 24 of March, the East Brighton Food Co-op was producing free hot meals for residents; when the kitchen reached capacity they expanded into a bigger one in another block of housing. By mid-May, at the time of our conversation, they had ramped up the operation to deliver 1200 hot meals a week. “The project has been a hub of energy and focus and enthusiasm,” says Mary. “The community have felt justifiably proud of what they have done themselves.”

The empowering experience of the past few weeks stands in contrast to how Darking has seen outside agencies operate within local settings.

“Our frustration in the past has been with people saying they're doing things in the local area that are not manifested on the ground,” she says. “In this situation, Bryan and Darren knew they could do a better job than anybody. They wanted the community to own it, and not have someone claim it later as their initiative.

She is concerned about the lack of parity that often characterises these situations, and how

“large organisations with more money than the communities they’re engaging with often take credit for what communities do.” This can result in “an extraction of community energy and identity” by organisations that don't actually need that extra credit, while the communities that they are working with actually do need all the encouragement and recognition that they can get.

After COVID-19, what lessons are there for research and development that addresses inequalities in communities? In some ways, Darking thinks that this has underlined how fruitless much research is. We should stop talking: “It’s about keeping people alive. Taking action has to be the priority – but taking action on equal terms with trust at the heart of it. That's not exactly a common academic method, but it needs to be.”

New research has to be re-orientated to become “more consensual and of mutual value.” And the process of building that trust first requires an investment in relationships with integrity.

“What is currently missed is that first stage - investing time in finding out what people are angry about, what they see as injustice, what their immediate needs are,” she says. “We should let community energy build without people feeling like they're constantly being helped, so they can take credit for what's happening and have ownership of it.”

Much is talked about the value of co-production in research. What does she think of it? She is ambivalent. “Co-production’s become an accepted way of doing things in policy circles, but it tends to happen in a bubble,” she reflects. “People can do valuable co-production work and still run off with the results. Ownership has to be passed over. It’s that last part that never seems to happen.”

While there’s always going to be a need for data, Darking says this should be balanced with greater focus on agency, and “people taking action.” Quantification should not be the end product. As she’s found out recently, communities may want research, “but they need to work that need out for themselves, and they need to tell you what they want that research to be.” As an example, she describes how during the COVID-19, she was able to supply data on request to help with funding applications the food team needed to make. Snow from East Brighton’s Crew Club says “the problem is the system is so cold to the stats that it produces. No one from the system has tried to understand what it’s like to live these lives, live in these areas, have a sense of not being listened to, or a feeling of being worth nothing.”

Darking describes research, services and local government, and community as three sides of a triangle. “If you’re looking to reset after COVID-19, then it's maintaining the integrity and autonomy of that third side of the triangle that has to drive things,” she says. “It's community. Otherwise the space gets crowded out with researchers and services.”

Causewayed grew out of a grant from Nesta, and Darking values the respect and integrity of that relationship. “We have had access to Nesta’s resources and expertise, but it's not been imposed.” she says. Nesta created “space” for the community and ensured that the money – the vital economic power in these relationships – sat with a community organisation and the governance of those funds remained community owned. Every penny went to the project. “That's fundamental,” she says. “If you achieve that as a first step, you're already a long way down the road.

Darking’s experience makes her optimistic about Nesta’s proposals for a new body that could research and trial ways to tackle health inequalities at a local level. But she urges courage in its approach, and an emphasis on balancing research with agency.

“We do need a body that can help create the space in which community energy can be nurtured and take root. Conventional research methods frequently don’t empower the community, and sometimes institutions, local government and services need to ‘step back’ to allow that community energy and identity to build.”

This, she admits, “is not easy; it’s disruptive.” She describes the occasionally raucous evolution of Causewayed, from an initial feisty community meeting, points to its current vigour, and calls for more recognition of “community capacity,” which can be one of our “most precious commodities in combating inequality.”

Communities need structural and economic support through national policy. What does she see as the most serious barriers to change at that level? Darking thinks things have been allowed to atrophy. There’s now an entrenched perception about the value of care, and ultimately, of people’s lives. “We’ve allowed the “inverse law of care” to exist and intensify through permitting austerity policies to take hold,” she says. “Those who most need health care are least likely to receive it, and those who need it least have better access to it.”

She thinks this has been painfully evident in the way that the pandemic has spread through the social care system, which she believes needs radical overhaul. Above all, she wants people to feel that they are able to take action and challenge their circumstances. And that does seem to be one outcome, as evidenced by recent Black Lives Matter marches, which were sparked by the killing of George Floyd in the USA, but also gave voice to the pain and frustration at the waves of deaths in deprived BAME communities.

Does she hope that COVID-19 has created a moment where public health and inequality move to the top of the agenda? “Well, I don’t want to instrumentalise people’s suffering. I’d rather not hand that to the policymakers. But unless we somehow turn the inverse law of care over, it’s clear it equates to deaths. It’s not just people ‘having a difficult time.’”

Darking warns that the recent dip in infections is not the end of COVID-19. “Because of the localization of the way this virus is transmitted, it can take hold at a place-based level. We need to get better prepared. Having the structures in place, and the means to ensure that communities are empowered to act when they need to - that's got to be the priority. There is so much to learn from all of this. Right now, it has focused minds on true priorities – on keeping people alive, and caring, for ourselves and for others.”

Dr Mary Darking is an activist and a Principal Lecturer in Social Policy and innovation at the University of Brighton. She studies the role that innovation plays in disrupting patterns of inequality and helped set up Causewayed, a social movement for health, based in East Brighton. She has been working with them during the COVID-19 outbreak.

With thanks to:

Bryan Coyle, founder of East Brighton Food Co-op and a founding member of Causewayed.

Darren Snow MBE, founder of The Crew Club a community-led charity which has been providing opportunities and activities for children and young in East Brighton since 2001. He is also a founding member of Causewayed.