SPEAKER_00 0:05

The third place. Somewhere distinct from home and work or school, such as cafes, hubs, libraries and youth clubs, is a vital part of Fabric Fast Society. And they're dying. They perform a vital role at gathering spots where we can connect face to face. Why should we care and what can we do to support them? That's what we're looking into today. Welcome to the Gen XD Exchange. I'm Chris Perkins, Gen X parent, now 50 something empty nest up.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

And I'm Lily Perkins, Gen Z Career Explorer. We swap insights on career choices, work, and life in general.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

So whether you're a Gen X parent trying to figure out midlife challenges.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Or a Gen Z young professional or student figuring out adulthood, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

So I was at the last quiz night with you guys at the local pub before it closed at the end of last year. And it was a really, really fun night. And I was sad that that was the first and last time that I was going to be going. But obviously, rising costs mean that the landlord couldn't keep it going. And it's just such a shame that you guys lost that. And I lost that as well. I wanted to go back.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

I know it's been a regular thing for us as a team of six or eight every Sunday. The quiz will probably pop up somewhere else at some point. But I read something about the rate of pub closures recently. It said they were going at about eight per week across the UK. And 2,300 pubs have closed since 2020. I mean, the whole hospitality industry was kind of on its knees, you know, all through the pandemic and hasn't really recovered. But pubs in particular really seem to be having a hard time. And if you think that a pub probably plays host to about a thousand different conversations a week, that's 2.3 million conversations every week that aren't happening now. You know, they're just gone. That's people that just aren't talking. And that's all social connection. And for your age group or teenagers, if you think about all the youth services that have been cut, I read an estimate that it was£1.1 billion worth in England and Wales from 2010 to 2024. It's no wonder that your generation feel they've got nowhere to go and they're just on their screens all the time, and that's not healthy. But there there are no third places or not very many third places.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Yeah, I remember in school access to third spaces being a lot more accessible because of the amount of like sports clubs, you could go to the library, craft clubs, there was all kinds of different out-of-school and lunchtime clubs that cater to different interests. But I imagine even in the years since I left school, it might have gotten harder for them to run those spaces. Like just how difficult everything's got, it would make sense. So what is it that we're actually talking about here? How are we defining these third spaces, third places?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

So the term was coined way back in 1989 by an American sociologist called Ray Oldenburg, and this is how he described them. Most of us have two main places in our lives the first place, home, and the second place, work or school. The third place is an anchor of community life. It's neutral ground where you aren't a worker or a student or a parent. You're just a neighbor, a community member. It's a place that is easy to get to, where conversation is the main activity, and most importantly, it acts as a leveler where your social status or bank balance doesn't matter. It's the great good place where you go to find your people. That just sounds like the sort of place that every community needs, right? You want somewhere to hang out with your people.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

I know it sounds lovely. And have a chat. What do we like more than a blather?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

You do like a blather.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Exactly. But no, it's so somewhere that you can relax in public, meet familiar faces, make new friends. And I liked as well the point about it doesn't matter about your bank account, because places like this should be free, inviting to everyone, you shouldn't have to pay to enter. Yeah. And also that feeling of belonging, what the quote says about feeling like you're just a neighbour, just part of a community. Yep. Like there's probably regulars you can get to know, and with conversation being the main activity, you're not watching a performance like in cinema or you know, a football ground. But I think just given how much we've missed all of that in the pandemic, you would think these places would really be thriving and people would be looking for more connection like that. So why is it that they're struggling?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

I think it's mostly because everyone is dealing with rising costs. So for the operators of these places, they've got rent, energy, food, and drinks all got more expensive. Yeah. And everyone is also feeling the pinch and has less disposable income to go out and spend money. So these places are free to enter, but if you've got to buy a pint or buy a coffee, you know, yeah, that's all gone up in price. But I think there are some other factors. So one is the disappearance of the main anchors on the high street, which were the banks and the post office. You know, they have disappeared. So if you don't have a reason to pop down to the shops to visit those places, you have no secondary reason to stop for a coffee or a sandwich. So they've been affected by that.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Yeah, because a big part of why I would stop for a coffee or sandwich as well is if I'd gone on a little shopping trip or had errands to run, but now it's like, why would I do that when I can click and collect it or do it all online?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Exactly. Yeah, don't need to go to the supermarket if they'll do deliveries, all of that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

And even if you go into the big chains as far as the coffee shops are concerned, they want high turnover of tables. So you don't get that relaxed stay as long as you want vibe. They want to get people in and out. And mostly all of those places are full of remote workers on laptops. So they've got their heads down. There's no spontaneous conversation that Oldenburg said with the lifeblood of these places. And they should offer that kind of relief from whatever everyday stresses you're experiencing at home or work. And if they're just co-working spaces now, you don't have that relaxing atmosphere.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Yeah, there's no separation between the two. It's all just kind of blurred.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah, and then if one of these places closes and is empty, you've got developers moving in, buying them up, converting them into flats, which makes even fewer destinations for people to come into town for. So I think we've got into a bit of a downward spiral.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

But there are some amazing examples of what's possible. And you'll know of one. So your grandpa, who was known to everyone by the nickname you and Charlie gave him of Cheeky Monkey, was a founding member of the Paisley branch of the men's shed, which is a fantastic organization.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

And he loved that. And so did everyone else. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

I mean, places for men to hang out and man make friends and they would learn new skills. It's woodworking and repairs and all sorts of things. They'd work together on things. It's that shoulder-to-shoulder thing that we spoke about in the friendship episode. No, men in particular like doing that rather than face to face. And they would they would do things for the community. So they they'd repair things for people or they'd they'd make improvements, you know, and they would do planters for the town centre and all of that kind of stuff. So that's a that's a brilliant example.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

So positives all around. Yeah, positives, they get a social space, especially for men of Cheeky Monkey's generation. I think we spoke about this in the friendship episode as well. Men generally don't have the same like social outlets that women would have. So it was really it was great.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah, you know, the loneliness pandemic, it's one of the things that really helps to overcome that for people. So that's so that's a good example.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

And I know some libraries have become real community hubs and gathering places, and they're some of the fewer free spaces that we've got left. So they've almost become like communal living rooms as warm spaces in winter that people could go to, running tool libraries as well as books. You know, they have a lot of them have gaming lounges now, they have like printing services, laptops, computers, whatever. So it's less about the whole traditional thing of the evil librarian telling you to shush and more about come here, hang out, treat it a bit like a you know, a youth club, a we spot. And there's actually a TikToker, she's a podcaster as well, and a TikToker called Zara, I think it's Macintosh, what Zara loves on socials. And she recently has been encouraging her audience to go out and get library cards and make use of their services. Yeah, which is really nice because it's also nice to have an influencer, podcasty person who's not just saying, Here's a link to all my products, go and buy this, spend more time on your phone, watch my videos. She's encouraging people to get out, put money into the library because obviously, if it's not getting used, they're more at risk of getting shut down. So I like what she's doing, and I actually think I do need to get into my local library more and not just the uni library. And then what we were saying earlier on with the coffee shop thing, too. All the best coffee shops I know are the small independent ones. Yeah. And if you're using the big chains, they're just taking cash out of the communities to their corporate owners. Um, and then another difficulty with coffee shops, or at least the ones that I like to go to anyways, is that they do close around about five because obviously they've got less people coming in, more expensive to run that late. Um, but it means if you're looking for somewhere to go after uni, for example, you've only really got the big chains that stay open until maybe eight o'clock, or the student union, or the pub. And not everybody wants to drink. That's the thing about pubs as well. People don't necessarily want to sit with a pint all the time.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

No, but I think they have got better at no and low alcohol options.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Oh, definitely. I think everywhere, I mean we got that when we spoke to Steve as well. Yeah. And we were talking about how it's becoming more common. But even then, like pub might be a bit too noisy. I think having the option of going to the pub or going to a coffee shop at the same time would be would be nice.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah, but again, it's costs in terms of them opening late. But if you can find the right pub that's not playing loud music, that it does create a an atmosphere where you can sit and chat, you can nurse a drink of whatever it might be for as long as you want. You know, that's the kind of yeah, that's the kind of thing people are looking for. Yeah. So if you think back to when you were still at high school a few years ago, what third space facilities did did you use or or what would you have wanted?

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Well, I think actually my school did a really good job of making use of the school buildings and the facilities. I went to a really sporty school. It was a what was that, Scottish school of sport. So we had really good, we had a pool, there was a volleyball court, there was all kind of stuff. So that was good. It was there would be clubs put on by the school and then other organisations. And then I also remember The Peak, which was like the big sports centre in Stirling. That was like really popular when I was in school, and I remember me and Lucy using our gym memberships to sit down on a yoga mat after school, occasionally doing a set-up or two, but mostly just chatting, probably annoying all of the adults who were there to get a work out and by taking so much.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Yeah, or the peace and quiet if they're doing yoga.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

But exactly, it was better than drinking on a park bin. So I remember lots of people from her school being there, some from mine.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

And then also it was a good opportunity to to mix the social groups. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

And also, there were people that were there working out, like meanless, they probably did get her heart rate up for about 30 seconds, which again better than nothing, and we'd be walking to and from, and so you know, and then also when I was younger, you know, church halls, you could do gays, you could do scouts. Yeah, so that was another outlet there. But I think this lack of viable third places for young people is really problematic, especially now with the rate that youth centres and stuff are shutting down. And there's this demonisation of young people loitering on the streets, but that's because I feel like there's literally nowhere else to go, especially if you're in a certain age bracket where you're maybe you know too cool to do the girl guides, and that actually reminds me of a funny story when I think about loitering and bad reputations and stuff, because people my age from Sterling might remember the Argoths who were a group of goths who used to hang around the old Argoths in town. And they went viral. Yeah, they went viral on like Scottish social media a few times. Yeah, they didn't have people someone tweeted something like, I can't believe there's a group of goths who hang outside an Argoths in Sterling and they get called the Argoths. They get loads of lights. So yeah, for teenagers, there was actually a report last year that found that 70% of them who engaged in minor vandalism or loitering said that it was actually the lack of affordable indoor spaces for them that was the primary reason for their antisocial behaviour. So, you know, that makes sense. I'm sure the Argoth got into a bit of bother uh for loitering, but to be fair, where else could they go?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

There is literally nowhere to go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Exactly. And then without any physical hubs as social settings for these groups, they're then drifting into hidden spots like parks, derelict buildings, and with no trusted adults like youth workers nearby, you know, the temptation to get into underage drinking, smoking, taking drugs, that becomes really easy. And like I was saying earlier, especially if you're 16, 17, you're not legally allowed to go out to the pub and have a drink or the club or whatever, but you are too cool for the girl guides, you're too cool for the scouts, you are gonna end up drinking on a park bench somewhere. So, yeah, that is really problematic. But moving on, I know that you and mum were big fans of Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams on TV. So, what would you say that showed was possible?

SPEAKER_00 13:48

It was amazing, and Freddie deserves a knighthood for what he's done. So, cricketer, born in Preston. Uh, he decided to go back to Preston and try and get a group of kids from pretty deprived backgrounds who felt they were sort of left behind and and not engaged with anything, tried to get them into cricket. Now, that's a pretty niche sport, I think, especially in uh a lot of the big towns. So getting them into football would have been more straightforward, but he's a cricketer and he thought he would want to engage people with playing cricket. I mean, cricket has quite an elitist reputation, so we had to break down. Yeah, he had to break down some of those barriers. The facilities were gone or derelict or overgrown because they hadn't been used. So we had to kind of engage the kids, engage the communities in reviving some of these clubs that were in a pretty poor state. Yep. And teach them and mentor them to just understand some fairly basic stuff like showing up on time for training and actually engaging and actually dealing with some of the challenges and getting on with people that they maybe didn't have a lot in common with. But the work he did was incredible. And some of those players have since gone on to get into coaching or they're volunteering or they've found stable employment, and they would say the discipline that they learned from what Freddie was doing was a reason that they're able to get things back on track. Yeah. And and youth organizations have said it's a great example, kind of a beacon of hope of what's possible if you create youth zones and bring more community sports facilities uh back for things like this.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

So and especially for, you know, if it's children from disadvantaged backgrounds, him showing up for them as well as them showing up for him, you know, coming on time, having a bit of discipline, the fact that he showed up for them and showed an interest and said, You deserve somewhere to gather and have fun and exercise, that sounds like a mutually beneficial thing, and the skills that they learned would have been really useful. And that's applicable to anywhere in the UK for kids of any background. They need people to show up for them and absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yeah, because he's since gone on to do a couple of others in other areas. And I think the thing he wasn't expecting to get out of this is the effect they would have on him. And I don't know if you remember hearing at the time that you know he was a top gear presenter and was in a really bad car crash and like really scarred his face and and he was in a a really difficult place in hospital for a long time. And he said that really had an effect on his confidence. He felt much more self-conscious, and actually the young people just sort of accepting him for who he was. He was a Preston lad, basically, and you know, they developed a really strong friendship, and and he actually really got a lot out of it, and it kind of got him back on track to some extent as well. So, not seen it before, it's an amazing programme to watch and a great example of of what's possible. And then there are other things like the DIY SOS big builds, which have shown what's possible when communities come together, create or or refurbish these third places, and the communities really value them. You know, you might think, well, that's getting done up, but it's probably going to get trashed or vandalised or people won't respect it. But they do, they really value these things being in their community. So it's possible, but we can't just leave it to TV shows to do it. So what have you found about what's happening to try and regenerate these third places?

SPEAKER_02 17:20

So the government has its pride in place programme for 2026 and has allocated 1.5 billion to 75 areas around the UK and is doing more with the community right to buy, where communities have first refusal on something like the local pub if it goes up for sale. So that that sounds positive.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yeah, some of the stories have made the news, you know, when a pub's gone up for sale and a community's bought it, which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Yep. And actually the Scottish Government is doing some good stuff on community wealth building. Um, the Scottish Land Fund started awarding millions from the end of last year to help communities buy back local assets again, pubs, swimming pools. And for 2026 to 27, the Scottish Government has allocated£47 million specifically for community-led regeneration. So they've made it clear that the government isn't going to run these places and the community will as well, which is great.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Do you remember the little swimming pool in Riverside?

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

And unfortunately, it got pulled down. Beautiful old kind of Victorian swimming baths, and it was an expensive building to run, yeah, and it needed some some maintenance.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Some PLC.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Yeah, but it would have been a fantastic local asset, and there just aren't the resources to restore these buildings and operate them efficiently, and it got torn down, and I can't even think what's in its place now. But it's something that's a car park. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, behind the school, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Yeah, total waste. Like, build a car park at Tom Rittles, give me back to my pool as a swimmer when I was younger, pretty devastating. Um, but I do think that there's more that can be done at a local level. So if you think about all the school buildings that sit empty from 4 pm and through the holidays, these are perfect places for youth clubs, and they already have the facilities like the gym and the drama spaces, the music and computer equipment, the music stuff. So with the right joint youth agreements with organizations that could operate from the schools, there is so much more that they could do. My school, like I say, was pretty good with it, and I hope that uh they still are, but again, that's like a huge outlet that we could be tapping into there. Then there's a really good example of public-private partnership in Newton Aycliffe called the Woolworths model, where they turned the old Woolworths store into a lifeline community hub, which is really nice because if it's sitting empty, why not do something like that with it?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Well, they were all really big stores. Yeah, exactly. It took a long time for the Woolworths in Sterling to get uh taken over by something. Yeah, but it's just another shop. I think it's the Boots now.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

So this Woolworths model was funded by a government grant, a donation from a property management company and local fundraising events. The shop now houses about a dozen different services like a people's cafe and community kitchen, a community pantry, crisis support, a hub for the neighbourhood policing team that's not it's not a full-blown police station, and then space for multiple small charities that previously had no physical premises, providing things like debt advice, mental health support, and employability training, which is all within one building which otherwise would have been lying empty. And this reminds me of another thing in Stirling because Sunny's Premier Shop, um, which is a very popular uh corner shop in the town, they're really popular on social media, they do all kinds of videos, it's really funny. But they bought a unit opposite their shop and weren't sure what to do with it and were taking suggestions. And I can't remember what organization it is they've partnered up with, but they've essentially just given it free of charge to you know those people that go around the streets and like give foil blankets to people who are passed out and like make sure that drunk girls are getting home t in their taxis.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Oh, right, yeah, a sort of community team that's out in the evening.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

So they didn't have anywhere physical to work out of, and Sonny's has just given them this place free of charge to work out of. So exactly, perfect example there.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Well, you would think and like everything in that old Woolworth store is a fantastic asset. Yeah, it's a one stuff. And the fact that all of those things are together, you know, new things are going to happen as a result of different collaborations between those organizations, and you see new things going on. So yeah, something that I'm sure could be replicated elsewhere because we've all got big empty shops on on the high street that could be repurposed.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Yeah. And then in connection with that, in April this year there'll be lower business rates for businesses that have social value. So things like hosting community groups like the men said, or youth workshops, that kind of thing. Cool. So that's a really positive sounding thing. Well.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

So hopefully all of that investment is gonna start to change the tide and perhaps you know bring some disused places back into use or uh allow new things to get set up. Because clearly there's a need for them, definitely, definitely need them. So that's all sounding really encouraging. Obviously, we do now have a lot of tech, which is breaking down barriers, and uh I've been learning about the concept of the fourth place, which is combining the two. Okay. So with more people in the knowledge economy, and we've kind of blurred the boundaries between work and living, which is the first and second place. There's this idea emerging of co-living, so multi-family or multi-generational living, which is much more common in some other cultures than it is in the UK. And then you've got co-working, which are social spaces for remote workers because so many more people are working from home, but they don't want to be stuck at home all day. So they're trying to find these co-working spaces and co-mingling where it all blends together. So a bit like the um Woolworths example, all of these new social environments are creating a fourth place. So you've got multi-generational homes or co-living arrangements with several families sharing some space, along with co-working and social space. And this could be a really good way of regenerating urban areas. If you think about all the empty offices in city centres, to bring people back into town and city centres, you could create more affordable housing and reduce the cost of providing all those essential services. And if you think about all of that empty space in the cities, prime locations, convert some of that into affordable housing for key workers, social spaces, more mixed use that could act as those hubs. I think we we definitely need more of that.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Agreed.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

And then there's this idea of a fifth place. How many places is um a bit ominous. Like unfortunately, we all know that another pandemic is inevitable at some point. So people are looking at different configurations of these living and working arrangements to create semi-private and semi-public spaces that can be quarantined places.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Oh no, we actually are living in a Phil Lotten dystopia.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Preparing for another pandemic, which kind of makes sense, but it's not very pleasant to think about. But that's the sort of fifth variation. So I don't think they just mean gated communities, which obviously already exist in some places. These are new ways of designing communities that can more easily be quarantined in the event of an outbreak of something. Could be really handy if there is a zombie apocalypse. So, like in in The Last of Us, you've got these thought-like communities that can keep the nasties out. So maybe that's what they're thinking of.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

I think with the way the world is going, it probably will be a zombie apocalypse that we're faced with next. So honestly, the more prepared the better. It kind of sounds like it's like they're describing communes, like gated communes.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Yeah, you know, it could be a move back to that kind of thing. More kind of cooperatives, yeah. Whole communities living together instead of individual households.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Yeah. So to wrap this up, I feel like I know what the answer is going to be to this, obviously, but do we think there should be more third places and spaces? Yes. Yes, yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Definitely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

So if I was to ask you if you had the power to do one thing to encourage them, what would that be then?

SPEAKER_00 25:36

So I think we should support our independent third places more. So that the small coffee shops, local pubs and restaurants that aren't part of a chain, libraries, things like the men's shed, maybe even look for ways to create more of these intergenerational places, break down some of those barriers that are demonising young people.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Stop demonising the youth, man.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah. How about you? What would you do?

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Well, I would agree with that. I do feel quite inspired recently from Zara, the tech talker, to go and get my library card sorted. And also it is very easy to just kind of out of habit or convenience go to a big chain coffee shop when actually you've got a local small business round the corner. So more of that. And then I think, as I mentioned before, doing more with school spaces is really helpful. But maybe maybe extending that not just to school age people, like you know, maybe it'd be nice for young adults and students to be able to use the school as well because all the facilities are so good.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Yeah, I think there's actually a a church group, a congregation that uses Wallace High School on a Sunday. Yeah. No, so they don't need a place of their own, which would be really expensive to run.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

They can work out.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

But they've got an agreement with the council that they can use because they've got space in the the main hall that they can they can use. So yeah, that works well.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

And then also being aware of the community right to buy for communities to save their third places, because I think if it had been up to you guys with your local pub, you would have nabbed that right up and said, No, that's ours.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yeah, I mean it it wasn't for sale, it was the landlord who handed back the lease, basically, when it was due to uh renew and the rent got jacked up. He's like, nope, I can't make it at those prices, and just handed it back. So it's not for sale. But when something does come up for sale when it's being vacated, yeah, communities can get together and raise the funds and buy somewhere and turn it into that community asset.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

I think anyone listening to this should go and visit one of their communities third places this week as a little challenge from us. So not a supermarket and definitely not a chain coffee shop, but a local community space or local business that acts as a gathering place for people. So go to your small indie coffee shop, go to your library, go to your local pub, sit with the old geezers, have a chat.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Well, I am one of the old geezers.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

That's true. Well, sit with the older geezers or let the youth sit with.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Show your support. Vote vote with your feet. Go and go and visit a third place. Yeah. Well, we hope this episode has given you something to think about and something to do to explore the third places in your area. If you've enjoyed it, please give us a five star rating and write a short review. Always good feedback for us, and we look forward to to reading your comments. You can follow us if you want to learn more. The links are in the show notes. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Gen Ecty Exchange.