Spacehive: a stonking idea which is perfectly timed. Founded by journalist Chris Gourlay, it’s a crowdfunding platform for Civic Projects (think farms on roof tops and art galleries in phone boxes). After writing for The Sunday Times about Architecture & Planning stuff, he was continually frustrated by the inaccessible and traditionally stale planning process. Why was it that only councillors and developers (with their recession addled budgets) could change stuff in our outside areas? Why couldn’t we do it ourselves?

Combined with a eye firmly ogling the early development of Kickstarter in the US, Chris took these two bits and mushed them together to develop Spacehive. It seemed to tick everyone’s boxes. Imagine a local government and its nearby businesses and residents, all contributing to the £791,433  needed to rebuild their Community Centre. Well, put your imagination back in the drawer for this one because the Glyncoch Community Centre – one of Spacehive’s early success stories – was exactly that. Pretty darn impressive. Here’s to many more where that came from we say.