 Who came up with the Stroud Pound?
New money: Do local currencies actually work? But they will only work if Britons are ready to accept that they have the power to invent their own currency. He is behind the ScotPound, a proposal for a new national currency for Scotland that emerged after the referendum on Scottish independence. It's an idea he no longer thinks will work, because the debate, since Brexit, has shifted from the currency issue back to ideas about Scottish independence. Everyone has gathered to decide what a Glasgow Pound might look like at a time when many are asking if local currencies can work at all. The founders of the Brixton Pound wanted to do something to stop 80p of every £1 spent locally from leaking out of the area into the pockets of corporations, at the expense of small local traders. So they printed a currency that would have the same value as the pound, but could only be traded in independent Brixton shops, where the shopkeeper would also have to spend it locally. No two local currencies are exactly the same. But the Brixton Pound and other recent schemes follow the example ten years ago of the Totnes Pound, a 'complementary currency': that is, one supplementing the national currency. The Bank of England does not consider these forms of currency legal tender, but the notes hold value in the same way as a gift-card from a department store, with the same kind of restrictions about where they can be spent.
 Molly Scott Cato
 Ciaran Mundy  Duncan McCann  Stephen Clarke  Molly Scott Cato