Brixton Pound launches this week

Andy Wimbush is nef‘s Communications Assistant and blogmaster.

This week sees the launch of the UK’s first ever urban local currency: the Brixton Pound. As the local Lambeth think-tank, nef is supporting the scheme, which the organisers hope will keep Brixton a diverse retail environment, full of independent shops, traders and craftspeople, as well as cutting carbon emissions by encouraging locally sourced goods and services.

The B£ will be first spent in the Dogstar, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, on Thursday evening, after a launch event in Lambeth Town Hall, with speeches from Transition Movement founder Rob Hopkins, Lambeth Council’s CEO Derrick Anderson, and nef‘s own David Boyle, co-author of the forthcoming book The New Economics.

The B£ team have put together a great little animation about how the currency works and why we should use it. To find out more, visit http://brixtonpound.wordpress.com/