Kathryn tells us about her experiences of living in Richmond upon Thames and what she needs from living in a city in the future.
Hi, I am Kathryn Tippet-Wilson. I am at Teddington Lock and I live in Richmond borough upon Thames. I'm wearing black jeans, a pink top and I have sunglasses on my head because it is very sunny today. I've lived in Richmond borough my whole life. I was born in Hammersmith. I moved to Ham when I was four but that was only from Twickenham. Here, I know a lot of people, not everybody but I know most of the people down my road where I live. We've got good community areas where people can meet and even just be meeting new people, sitting down and having a coffee and talking to somebody you've never spoken to before. I think that's important.
To me, London is a concrete jungle. I'm in a green jungle. It's important for kids to have the green space because they can explore, and the environment for animals as well. We have foxes, but they're not urban foxes, they're proper foxes that are scared of you. Like, your urban fox will just walk past you. These foxes, they see you, they run. We have badgers, I mean I've seen two badgers in the street fighting. You know, climate change is the worst thing we're facing. I think everything is evolving and having a hot weather and it's setting things on fire. Or, you know, the animals hibernating too late.
We have lots of ways of getting around. Using your bicycle is the best way because we have the riverside, and we have lots of bike paths that you can travel on to get to your A to B points. I don't like cars. I think cars are a waste of money. You have to pay for petrol, and you have to pay for tax, and you have to... you know. You've got a bike, one payment with your lock and you're done. I think the housing stock is bad and I think if I were the Mayor of London, I wouldn't give a percentage of private to local authority. I would make sure that if there was a new housing development that it was for a local authority social housing. If they wanted private, then they'd have to go out of London because the housing stock in London is atrocious.
The people that are on the low social scale when it comes to earnings, housing, wellbeing, health you know, mental health. I think it's important for my mental health that I stay here. I have bipolar, so you know it's important for me to be here in 20 years’ time, somewhere I'm comfortable and I know that I can just walk out of my door if I'm feeling stressed I can go and destress somewhere quiet. I can go and walk in the trees and there's no one there. I can just sit on a branch that's fallen down and sit there for an hour and no one would bother you, you know. In 20 years' time, I hope I can still do that.