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Stu McClure of Long Live Southbank talks to the Looking Sideways podcast

LLSB's Stu McClure chats to the Looking Sideways podcast about future plans

Another in-depth podcast interview from Matt Barr of the The Looking Sideways podcast dropped this week, this time discussing the Long Live Southbank campaign with one of the full-time heads behind LLSB, Stu McClure.
If you’ve listened to The Looking Sideways podcast previously, then you’ll know that it’s the brainchild of one-time White Lines magazine staff writer Matt Barr, and focuses on the stories of various influential individuals within the Action Sports realm. Previous skateboarding related interviewees have included the likes of Pete Hellicar, Lucy Adams and R.a.D magazine’s Tim ‘TLB’ Leighton-Boyce (you can find links to all of those interviews below).

This time around, the focus of the podcast is on a place, rather than an individual, with Stu McClure of LLSB talking Matt through the genesis of the Long Live Southbank campaign and its evolution from occupying an adversarial position as regards the Southbank Centre itself, to its current status as a grass roots campaigning body working alongside the institution.

Stu also discusses the now-underway plans to reclaim Southbank’s little banks, along wth the power of Social Media (particularly Instagram) as a campaigning tool, the recent £700k match-funding grant awarded to both LLSB and the Southbank Centre and its implications, and a brief history of the Undercroft within the wider historical context of the city of London.
For anyone invested in this truly inspirational campaign, in whatever capacity, this podcast will fill in any gaps that you may have.

Cover photo (and below) of Curtis McCann skating the soon to be reclaimed ‘Little Banks’ back in 1989 by TLB.

The question of, ‘Who gets to decide what constitutes the culture of a city?’ is a hugely important one, and LLSB have created a blueprint whereby a grass roots, culturally-led perspective of how the city functions can work in tandem with massive cultural institutions and project the power of street cultures alongside more commonly recognised ‘high culture’.
For those who don’t know – consider this: the original plans to remove the skateable space of the Undercroft, (which sparked the LLSB campaign in the first place) are now the most objected to development plans in UK history. This is entirely down to the passion of everyone involved in LLSB (in whatever capacity) and their success in communicating the value of the cultures enclosed under the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Think about that for a minute…
What a truly staggering achievement.

LLSB and the Southbank Centre still need to raise 700k on their own in order to unlock the 700k match-funding allocated by the Mayor of London, so go check out their website at http://www.llsbdonate.com/ and donate whatever you can, or find out which events are planned that you can get involved in.
LLSB is concerned with much more than just Southbank itself – it is a testament to the power and strength of our collective community and is something which ought to be celebrated. Big up.

Go to The Looking Sideways website at: wearelookingsideways.com to read more about the background of LLSB and see more of TLB’s iconic photography.
If you missed out on earlier Looking Sideways skateboard-related podcasts then you can listen to the Pete Hellicar interview here, the Lucy Adams interview here, and the truly amazing TLB interview here.

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