Nobody knows what a community needs better than the people who are a part of it. So why are residents so often excluded from funding decisions? Just nine miles east of Central London, an ambitious funder is changing that. Barking & Dagenham Giving’s GROW Fund is the first community-led investment fund in England. Residents have the power to make decisions about how money is invested in their neighbourhoods. And they have chosen to back community enterprises that will make a commercial and social impact in their area. Nine Miles East is a podcast about the rise, fall, and rise again of a chronically underfunded and deprived London borough.