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In the United Kingdom social centres can be found in squatted, rented, mortgaged and fully owned buildings. Social centers differ from community centers in that they are run autonomously, usually without assistance from the state and or corporations. The aims and policies of the centres are determined by those running them.
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UK Social Centre Network
The UK Social Centre Network (also known as the Social Centre Network) is a grassroots initiative to establish a network between self-identified radical independent community social centres in the United Kingdom.
Organisation
There is no single policy statement but a general desire to improve communication and co-operation between "the growing number of autonomous spaces to share resources, ideas and information". Network participants draw a distinction between their radical autonomous spaces and state or commercially sponsored community centres. The network of social centres in the UK is in its infancy compared to in Holland, Italy and Spain.
The last gathering of the network was at Kebele, Bristol, 28-29 November 2015, and the next is due on 26–28 August 2016 around various London social centres.
History
The group can trace its roots back to networking between the autonomous clubs of the 1980s such as Centro Iberico, Wapping Autonomy Centre and the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford.
The second national gathering of social centres was held at the 1 in 12 Club, in January 2007.:34
The fledgling network was profiled in 2008, in the pamphlet What's This Place? that was produced as part of the academic project Autonomous Geographies (funded by the ESRC).
In November 2014, the Sumac Centre in early Nottingham hosted the first weekend gathering of a (re)launch of the "Social Centre Network20. The network met again in April 2015 at the Next To Nowhere Social Centre in Liverpool and became known as the "Social Centre Network of UK and Ireland".
Evicted Social Centres
Examples of long-term squatted and now evicted projects would include the Spike Surplus Scheme and the 491 Gallery. Other past squatted centres in London have included the Bank of Ideas, RampART (Peckham), Our Bohemia, The Square and Ratstar.
Other evicted centres include the Free Factory in Bristol, The Black Cat Centre in Bath, Pleb's College in Oxford, Cwtch Community Centre in Swansea, the Peoples Autonomous Destination (PAD) and Gremlin Alley in Cardiff, the George’s X Chalkboard in Glasgow, Matilda in Sheffield, the Mill Road Social Centre in Cambridge, Sabotaj in Brighton, Justice not Crisis, the Birmingham social centre and most recently, Free Milk! (Platt Chapel) in Manchester.
Occasional centres
Some social centres occurred in a number of times and/or locations such as 195 Mare Street, Offmarket and the Really Free School. There are groups which choose to do temporary squatted events lasting a fixed time. Such groups may exist for years, such as the House of Brag (London), A-Spire (Leeds), Temporary Autonomous Arts (London, Sheffield, Brighton, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff), Anarchist Teapot (Brighton), Wildcats (Brighton) or the OKasional Cafe (Manchester).
Criticism
There has been debate on whether legal spaces are a useful anti-capitalist tactic, or not.
Paul Chatterton and Stuart Hodkinson view social centres as part of the "broader 'autonomous movement,'" playing an "important role in the re-thinking and re-making 'citizenship' by bringing people together in spaces whose very reason for existence is to question and confront the rampant individualism of everyday life."