Frontierlands

Frontierlands is Hazel Sheffield's book about Britain's forgotten places: silt-filled harbours, overgrown forests, sunken railway tracks and empty buildings. These sites were once economic engines and have since been abandoned by investors and the state. Local communities still live in and around them, and among those communities are pioneers working together to repair, rebuild and prepare for the future. Sheffield begins at the coastline and moves inland, through hoardings and railway arches, factories, streets and neighbourhoods, and finally into our homes. Her route runs from Watchet harbour in the South West to Gateshead in the North East, and from Lancashire to London and the South East. Along the way she meets people who are shaping their own futures, who know Britain's problems first-hand and have clear ideas about how to improve things. The book is about regeneration, reclaiming power and the hope that comes from community action. It looks at people who question how the world works and want to do things differently amid economic upheaval and climate crisis, and who are learning to build a new world. It asks all of us to consider how we should live in the face of certain change. It argues that we can reconnect with and reclaim our environment, and that it is possible to regenerate, reskill, create opportunities for industry and respond to the challenges of climate change.