The Eden Project guide to extraordinary communities

Extraordinary
Communities
ExtraordinaryCommunities

Extraordinary
Communities
Food Page 19
Energy Page 69
Housing Page 35
Heritage
Introduction
Page 3
Page 2
Creativity Page 83
Enterprise Page 53
Green Space Page 99
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02
03
04
05
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07
Extraordinary Communities
This book has been produced for the Big Lunch
Extras programme — the Eden Project’s way of
supporting and enabling people to become more
active within their communities and deliver the
social change they want to see.
Eden Project Publications
Published by Eden Project Publications © 2015.
Designed by own’n’wolf.
Edited by Robert Lowe, Juliet Rose and Mike Petty.
Contents

Communities are only as strong and vibrant
as the people who live in them. So when
you come across extraordinary people doing
remarkable things, and those actions spread
like a friendly virus to others, you end up
with something quite magical and powerful:
Extraordinary Communities.
I have witnessed some of this first hand.
Back in 2009 we came up with an idea called
The Big Lunch. It was a very simple idea to
try and encourage people across the nations
to sit and have lunch with their neighbours on
one day. With a lot of help from friendly people
like the Big Lottery Fund this idea has not only
been seeded but has flourished to the point
where millions of people take part every year.
The net outcome of something as simple as
this is that not only do millions of people have
fun and meet new people within the street
on which they live, but they then go on to do
other things together - things that change their
neighbourhood for the better. Beneath the
cupcakes and the bunting something serious
is happening with researchers being kind
enough to report The Big Lunch is an idea
that is building social capital on a mass scale.
But why is this important?
If you’re like me, you can become drawn into
a place where nothing is right in the world.
From the evening news, to your day at work,
to the people you know and your immediate
family, there will be a continual stream of
challenges and heart-wrenching stories.
We all face them – it’s part of life. But these
stories are set against a wider global context
that we are all living on this planet in a way
that calls into question how long we can
continue to do so. Not much optimism and
hope in this place.
Extraordinary Communities is the antidote to
this. The pages of this book celebrate projects
and ideas big and small, some simple some not
so simple. Some require time, commitment and
tenacity. All are driven by a passion and a belief
in doing something good. These are ordinary
people who chatted in pubs, cafés or at the
school gates and asked – ‘What if…?’ ‘We really
need a…’ or ‘Why don’t we…?’ And then – this is
the extraordinary bit – they did it.
There will always be tough
challenges. But projects like these
make stronger communities and
stronger communities are better
placed to take challenges head on.
Pause for thought – yes, these communities
are extraordinary but imagine that in time they
became the norm for all communities – that the
things outlined in this book were just ordinary
because everyone was doing them.
What would this be like? There would still be
challenges – but many of the existing ones
would have vanished, and I believe we would
be stronger and happier.
I salute the extraordinary people who make
extraordinary communities and hope the virus
continues to spread.
Peter Stewart MVO,
Executive Director, Eden Project
Introduction
0201
Introduction

When we think of heritage assets we often
think of ancient buildings, cathedrals,
iconic structures that attract tourists, and places
we visit on ‘special days’.
But heritage is much closer to home than
that, and it plays an important part in the lives
of ordinary people. Heritage is the thing that
links our past to our present and preserves our
memories for future generations. Moreover,
it is often the thing that links us as communities,
of place or of interest, and gives us a sense of
pride. I never cease to be amazed at the power
of heritage to capture the hearts and minds of
people and unite them to do amazing things.
And so whether you are trying to capture the
memories of local people through an oral history
project, protect an endangered piece of ancient
woodland, or safeguard the remains of local
industry, you are bound to find a body of people
who are prepared to work with you.
In a recent study commissioned
by the Heritage Lottery Fund, 81%
of people said they felt that heritage
was important to them and that
local heritage made their area a
better place to live.
My work has often concentrated on helping
communities take ownership and manage
heritage buildings. Often this is the thing which
has a perilous future and its risk and cost make
it an immediate priority. Communities galvanise
in the face of imminent demolition or sale.
But often the buildings are only the vehicle to
do what communities really hold dear to them.
Over the past decade we have seen massive
national demand from local people to take
over community buildings. There is enormous
evidence to show that community organisations,
made up of people who know and love the
places they live in, are amazingly skilled at
making difficult buildings work. Time and time
again communities are moved to action to save
heritage in particular. Heritage assets are a high
priority when it comes to the buildings people
want to save and keep in community ownership.
An interest in heritage assets may come from
a number of sources: they could be architectural,
artistic, historic, environmental or archaeological.
Sometimes it’s about preservation, other times
it’s about what the asset could be used for next.
The motive doesn’t matter, what is important
is understanding the power heritage buildings
have in defining and galvanising a community.
These are the places that local people will
chain themselves to the railings for, and when
considering undertaking a heritage project
it is important to step back and try to take a
dispassionate view of your proposed project.
If you decide to take on a heritage building
it is important understand the role it plays
in the community: how people relate to it,
and how you plan to manage and use it in
coming years. A clear business head is helpful
to consider your starting point. In general,
heritage community projects have two clear
functions – emotional and transactional –
and it is critical that anyone undertaking
a heritage project understands the way
people will relate to their project or asset.
Do you want to save the building because
of the strong feelings it evokes in you and
your community (emotional), or because
it serves a purpose, and would be a venue
to deliver services from (transactional)?
Striking the balance between these
two drivers will underpin the success
of your project.
Heritage assets help us understand where
we have come from and where we are
going. Their importance in the lives of people
cannot be underestimated, and playing a part
in protecting them for the future is an
amazing privilege.
Heritage
Heritage
Time and time again
communities are
moved to action to
save heritage buildings.
Carole Reilly, Locality
01
0403

Up Helly Aa
If you happen to find yourself in Lerwick on
the last Tuesday in January you might be
greeted by a Viking horde, part of the Shetlands’
Up Helly Aa festival. This is a riotous event that
sees 800 men (called guisers – another word for
masqueraders) in Viking gear being led around
the town by their leader or Jarl, and setting fire to
a dragon ship. Festivities go on well into the next
morning – which explains why the following
Wednesday is a public holiday in Lerwick and
nowhere else.
You could be forgiven for thinking that this
is a re-enactment of a centuries-old Viking
celebration – the Shetlands after all, were part
of Norway until the 15th century – but it is in
fact a more recent invention. The first Up Helly
Aa was held in the 1880s – as an alternative to
the more informal tradition that had sprung up
of drunken young men dragging burning barrels
of tar around the town on sledges and having
fights. If celebrating the arrival of bloodthirsty
marauding Vikings doesn’t sound that different in
essence, what marks it out is the sheer amount
of preparation that goes into the celebration;
work begins on the costumes of the Jarl and
his guizers the previous September. This should
be enough of an indication that this is a serious
community event and not just an excuse to get
legless, though legless they get. Moreover,
each Jarl has to wait 15 years for his turn to
maraud, showing patience that few Vikings
could have mustered.
www.uphellyaa.org
Festivities go on well
into the next morning
– which explains
why the following
Wednesday is a public
holiday in Lerwick
and nowhere else.
Photo©MartinDeutsch
Heritage
01
0605

Braemar
Castle
Braemar Community Ltd was founded in
2004, but until 2007 its focus was mainly
on improving access in the area, successfully
creating two footbridges and a new footpath.
That changed in 2007, when the community-
owned company took on a 50-year lease for
Braemar Castle, a 17th-century tower in need of
urgent repairs. Prior its acquisition of the lease,
the only experience the group had of heritage
projects was the restoration of a frame-cottage
in the district.
£400,000 was raised to undertake the repairs
and the castle is once again open to the public,
thanks to the community and its volunteers who
act as guides, man the tills and the shop and tend
to the gardens. Braemar Community Ltd is now
fundraising to create a visitor centre and improve
the grounds.
www.braemarcastle.co.uk
The Station
Richmond Station in North Yorkshire dates
from the mid-19th century but it hasn’t
been used by passengers since 1969 when
the railway line closed. After a period as a farm
and garden centre, Richmondshire Building
Preservation Trust acquired the building in 2003
and a community-based regeneration project
has turned it into a self-sustaining heritage
and leisure attraction for locals and for visitors
to the area.
The building houses a cinema, a restaurant and
café-bar in order to attract visitors and subsidise
the community activities on offer. There are a
range of artisan food producers, a gallery and
exhibition space, a lost and found shop, and
various rooms for hire, but The Station is also
home to a number of groups like the Station
Knitters and Station Singers, and offers courses
in languages, music, photography, yoga and
pilates, making it an important community
destination. The building is run by just four
volunteers with a further 70 or so providing
activities in the station.
The heritage of The Station and history of the
line are an important aspect of the operation;
memorabilia, oral history recordings and
photographs form part of the displays around
the building. The charity also works with schools
providing tours and outreach workshops in
conjunction with the local museum and theatre
to maximise the educational opportunities.
www.richmondstation.com
Photo©DoreenWood
Photo © Life in the eighties
Heritage
01
0807

First opened in 1935, Sandford
Parks Lido in Cheltenham was
one of the few heated lidos in the
country. As it approached its 50th
anniversary, however, it became
increasingly expensive to maintain
and run and there were calls to
close it.
A successful campaign ensured
a stay of execution, but further
problems were uncovered and its
closure was again put forward.
Once again the community rallied
and a newly formed charitable trust
took over the running of Sandford
Parks Lido from the Borough
Council in 1996 on a 25-year lease.
Since then it has successfully
received a grant from the Heritage
Lottery Fund for the restoration
of the pool and surrounding areas.
The group has been active in
ensuring the pool is a hub of the
community with an exciting and
enticing range of events from
sporting challenges and charity
swims to community and family
days. The lido also acts as a superb
venue for open-air theatre and
music concerts, including the
popular Swinging Summer
Evenings with a swing band
and refreshments.
Sandford Parks Lido has
commissioned a Conservation
Management Plan to identify and
then protect each of the important
aspects of the site. It also includes
new research into the history of
the lido, bringing together personal
memories, documents and photos
and making it available for all.
www.sandfordparkslido.org.uk
Sandford
Parks
Lido
The group has been
active in ensuring
the pool is a hub
of the community
Photo©IainBarton
Photo © Iain Barton
Heritage
01
1009

Bramley Baths
Bramley Baths has been run by the community
since 2013 as a not-for-profit social enterprise
following a community asset transfer from
Leeds Council. It is the only remaining Edwardian
bathhouse in Leeds, one of the oldest swimming
pools in Yorkshire and the striking building is
Grade II listed.
Bramley Baths aims to be the
‘friendliest baths in Britain’ –
there is a strong emphasis on
strengthening community spirit
A key aim of the group was to preserve this
historic treasure, but it was equally important
to save the sports facilities for the community
including public gym, steam room and space for
community events, meetings and fitness classes.
The building is now open seven days a week
and its operation has provided local employment
alongside a lifeguard training programme,
creating opportunities for young people –
some of whom now work for the baths.
Bramley Baths aims to be the ‘friendliest baths
in Britain’ – there is a strong emphasis on
strengthening community spirit – and they hope
to act as the driving force for new community
initiatives in the local area. A series of imaginative
events and activities have helped to ensure
that the facilities are fully used and open to
all community members, including children’s
holiday activity programmes, school swimming
lessons, visual-art installations, water photo
booths, mermaid classes and the UK’s first
swim-along cinema.
www.bramleybaths.com
Hastings Pier
the People’s
Pier
The last few decades have seen Hastings Pier
deteriorate in an unhappy series of events
that have left it a shell of its former self and a far
cry from its 1930s heyday. In 1990 storms caused
major damage to the Victorian structure, and it
closed four times between 1999 and 2008 as a
result of much-needed structural renovation. In
2010, the Grade II listed pier was devastated in an
arson attack in which an estimated 95% of the
pier’s superstructure was obliterated. It has been
an integral part of the life of the ancient town of
Hastings, and as a result of the unstinting work
of the Hastings Pier White Rock Trust, the pier
is destined for a new lease of life.
The Hastings Pier Charity, which now holds full
ownership of the pier, is a community group
formed soon after the pier’s closure in 2008.
Their aim is to create a ‘People’s Pier’ that holds
as much value for residents as it does for the
town’s holidaymakers. Many of the members are
volunteers, working in their own time to realize
the vision, and together they have proven to be a
powerful catalyst for change in their community.
Undeterred by the £14 million needed to
renovate the pier, the group has already
raised £13.7 million through a mixture of
community fundraising – from raffles to
quiz nights – and generous funding from
the Heritage National Lottery.
However, an outstanding deficit of £500,000
has allowed the community to take part
ownership of the iconic landmark by holding
shares in the pier. This ‘donor’ scheme,
in which over 550 residents have participated,
will allow residents to have a voice in the
running of the pier.
The additional capital raised by this scheme
will allow crucial facilities to be built on the
pier, but the hope is that it will also encourage
local residents to enjoy the pier, in the
knowledge that, when it reopens it has
been saved by members of the community,
for the community.
www.hpcharity.co.uk
Photo©RayWewerka
Photo © Anne Akers
Heritage
01
1211

The former Battersea Town Hall was saved
from demolition by local community
campaigners in 1970 and again from closure
in 1979. When Battersea Arts Centre became
the custodian of this Grade II listed building
in 2007, it strove to preserve the heritage
and develop the important community
connections through all its work. The Centre
now welcomes over 220,000 visitors a year
to a mixture of shows and discussions, a café,
community groups and youth activities like
Family Saturdays with free artist-led workshops
which take inspiration from the historic features
of the building.
The building was the site of the early Trade
Union Movement, the Independent Labour Party
and the campaign for women’s suffrage, and
its radical heritage permeates throughout the
organisation’s activities. The old Battersea motto,
‘Not For Me, Not For You, But For Us’ still rings
true and the organisation’s relationship with its
local community is of great importance to it.
The old Battersea motto, ‘Not For Me, Not
For You, But For Us’ still rings true and the
organisation’s relationship with its local
community is of great importance to it.
The £13 million restoration programme currently
underway, uses the concept of ‘playgrounding’
- a process of iterative building development
where the architect collaborates with artists.
As a result, the building is truly responsive to
the people it is designed for – artists, staff and
audiences. Extensive research into the building’s
political and cultural history has informed the
works and been captured in a Digital Archive
open to all.
Believing theatre can change lives for the better,
BAC use creativity to tackle challenges in the
local community and bring people together.
A recent project saw members of the
Wandsworth University of the Third Age
working with groups of schoolchildren,
artists and residents to explore memories
of children evacuated from the borough
during WWII, resulting in the art installation
‘Writing Home’ at the Centre as part
of Wandsworth Heritage Festival.
In April 2016, Battersea Arts Centre will also
become the custodian of the Wandsworth
Museum Collection enabling them to use
creativity to explore the past further with
local groups working together and creating
stronger communities.
www.bac.org.uk
Scottish Traditional Boat Festival
When the residents of Portsoy, a small
Scottish coastal community, staged a
celebration to mark the 300th anniversary of
their historic port, they couldn’t imagine where
the journey would take them. Twenty years on,
the annual Scottish Traditional Boat Festival –
a celebration of maritime and cultural history,
traditional local crafts and music, food from
across the region and lots of activity on the
water – now attracts 16,000 people and
generates £1m for the local economy.
The community-driven social enterprise,
run almost entirely by volunteers, has expanded
to take on the renovation of a 19th-century
Salmon bothy and port boatshed creating
a maritime museum and community event
facilities, a centre for teaching traditional boat
building and restoration skills, and space to
work with local primary and secondary schools.
The local council has also outsourced the
running of the village caravan park to the group.
Together these activities have helped to create
a sustainable community through attracting
visitors, offering facilities, and creating
employment opportunities in the local area.
Their approach has been so successful they
have also attracted the support of Aberdeen
Asset Management as title sponsor of the
Festival for the last three years, and they have
plans for creating a bunkhouse and other
facilities in the near future.
www.stbfportsoy.com
Battersea Arts Centre
Photos©MorelyVonSternberg
Photo © Allan Robertson
Heritage
01
1413

Bridgwater Festival
Every autumn a river of fire runs down
Bridgwater High Street as part of the
Bridgwater Festival, which claims to be
Britain’s oldest illuminated carnival.
Bridgwater ‘squibs’ — fireworks — are held
up on poles (called ‘coshes’) creating a fiery route
for the procession of carts (the local term for
floats). Held on November 5, the Guy Fawkes
Carnival began as a bonfire of old boats on
Cornhill – to which were added ‘Guys’
and more alarmingly, new boats when old
ones couldn’t be found. The Guys were made
by gangs of local people and paraded to the
bonfire before being thrown in, and it’s believed
that’s where the parading tradition began.
The carnival was far from sedate however,
and in 1880 an incident with the local fire
brigade ended with a riot, and the following year
a committee was set up to oversee the parade.
Quite why Bridgwater began the tradition
of throwing Guys on bonfires isn’t clear.
It’s been suggested that the town, like much
of the West Country at the time, was a
predominantly Protestant community
and therefore predisposed to burning
effigies of Catholics. But another theory points
to a more local connection: Robert Parsons,
Jesuit priest from a nearby village. Parsons was
an instigator of the Gunpowder Plot, and it may
be the tradition of burning Guys originated in
part to distance the inhabitants of Bridgwater
from his treachery.
www.bridgwatercarnival.org.uk
Carnegie Library
This beautiful purpose-built library, created
by the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth
with a benefaction from Andrew Carnegie, was
completed in 1905 and granted Grade II listed
status in 1981.
The Friends of Carnegie Library group was
formed in 1999 in response to the Council’s plans
to close the library and others in the borough,
and aims to protect Andrew Carnegie’s gift of
a free public library whilst also revitalising it.
When it opened, Carnegie Library was the first to
allow borrowers to browse open shelves rather
than request books from the librarian. To this
day, facilities are being continuously developed
and extended to open the library building to the
community in different ways whilst focusing on
health and wellbeing and social inclusion.
The reading garden, a quiet space for reading
and events with a sensory area and Braille
signing, is looked after by a monthly gardening
group, and the gallery is host to various talks and
exhibitions by local artists and school children.
From book groups, kids’ storytelling, coding and
chess clubs to adult literacy and Pilates classes,
there is something for everyone. The Library
even acts as a collection point for the local
Food Bank.
Although given an initial reprieve, Carnegie
Library remains under threat of closure and the
Friends group is as active as ever in the campaign
to retain a vital community hub, developing ideas
for income generation and recently managing
to extend the opening hours without additional
cost to the Council.
www.friendsofcarnegielibrary.org.uk
In 1880 an incident with the
local fire brigade ended with
a riot, and the following year
a committee was set up to
oversee the parade.
Photo © Timeless Images
Photo©CarnegieLibraryHeritage
01
1615

1 Review your capacity: people get
really excited about heritage projects,
but they are usually long term projects,
and inevitably people risk running out
of steam, especially if you are trying
to acquire an asset such as a building.
You will need to understand your capacity
in terms of people hours, finance, skills,
governance and stamina. Unless you are one
of the unusual few this is a marathon, not a
sprint and you will need to make sure you are
suitably equipped from the outset. Take time
in the planning stages to understand what
your resources are, and where you can draw
in more if needed. Make sure you are aware
of how long it will take and celebrate the
success along the way, no matter how small.
2 Think about the money: don’t let
your emotions completely take over.
Heritage assets are costly, and the principle
of conservation deficit means that often
mainstream funders will not fund them
because the money invested in repairs is
harder to recoup. Make sure your business
plan stands up to scrutiny. As well as
looking at mainstream funding bodies,
look at alternative sources of funding:
crowd funding, community shares,
community bonds. Think about your
Unique Selling Point (USP) and why this
asset would stand out from the crowd.
Often organisations running successful
community enterprises from heritage
buildings have negotiated a counterweight
to help them manage the costs of the
building. This might be running a carpark,
or leasing office or housing space in a
different location to generate income
to help balance the books.
3 Consider practicalities: heritage assets
are often in the ‘wrong place’, hard to adapt
and have a huge maintenance backlog.
Think about what you will use the place
for and what practical needs this will
generate. Beware liabilities; not just
of maintenance, but those associated
with updating to meet modern building
regulations, which can be phenomenally
expensive in listed buildings. Emotions
aside, if you are going to deliver services
from this building you will need to meet
the expectations of your customers.
4 Consider environmental issues:
talk to the conservation department
about the possibility of using energy-saving
measures in any refurbishment. Heritage
assets are often expensive to heat and run
so investment at the refurbishment stage
may take some of the pressure off the
business case in the long run.
5 Build partnerships: if this building
means something to you, it is most likely
that you are not alone. Build partnerships,
share your ideas, and strengthen your team.
Use the positive feelings heritage assets
generate as a lever; they are the buildings
local people will fight hard to save. Consider
getting local businesses involved, donating
materials and staff time to bring buildings
into a useable state, can be good publicity
for businesses and could develop into a
longer term partnership.
6 Promote yourself: let people know
what you are doing. Make friends with
the local and, if possible, national press.
Use different forms of media to get your
message across. Keep your supporters with
you on the journey with articles in local
papers, hyper-local websites, and social
media. Think about who you are reaching
and who you are not, and adapt your
messaging accordingly.
7 Build relationships with the ‘owner’
of the asset often cash-strapped local
authorities will consider favourable transfer
terms in return for future reduced running
costs. If your local authority is the owner,
read their asset transfer policy and try
and understand what their aims are for their
property portfolio in the coming years.
8 Understand the cost of doing
nothing: try and work out the long
term costs of the building. There are toolkits
available which will help you to understand
the whole-life costing for the building
(how often you need to replace a heating
system, roof etc.), and may help you to
negotiate more favourable transfer terms
with your local authority. Think about the
cost to the local authority of doing nothing.
Transferring the ownership of this asset
could relieve the local authority of future
maintenance obligations. But make sure
you are equipped to take them on.
9 Be prepared for tackling difficult
owners: which, sadly, is too often the
position for heritage buildings. If the
building you care about is in difficult
ownership (offshore, secretive, delinquent,
uninterested) there are a range of powers
that councils can use to ‘unstick’ the situation
but you will need to be persuasive. Historic
England’s ‘Stopping the Rot’ is a useful guide
and you can get expert advice from Locality’s
CADO (Community Assets in Difficult
Ownership) programme.
0 Talk to Planners and the
Conservation Department early.
Share your ideas, understand what will
and won’t be possible to do with the building.
Let them know your goals and find ways
to bring them with you on the journey.
Often people see planning and conservation
as an obstacle in the process, but remember
it is the aim of planning departments to
protect our built environment for future
generations. What may seem obstructive
will be based on protecting the built
environment. Gain an insight into their
priorities and try to find common ground.
1 Consider meanwhile uses for the
building whilst you are developing longer
term plans, like pop-up shops, one-off
markets, or serviced office space. Keeping a
building heated and in-use may halt further
deterioration, and there are exciting examples
of short term uses for buildings around the
country. It will also give you confidence that
you can ‘do this thing’ and will give you a track
record for funders, owners, and the local
community.
2 Think Long term. Often community
organisations trying to take on heritage
assets focus on the goal of securing the
capital to secure and refurbish the building.
But these buildings have often fallen into
disrepair and disuse because they are difficult
to run. Make sure you have an eye on your
long term aims. How will you run this place
once your refurbishment goals have been
achieved? This will help you avoid lurching
from financial crisis to financial crisis and
will give confidence to funders considering
your application.
1
1
1
Heritage
Top Tips
Heritage
01
1817

Food
We all need food and it offers some great
opportunities for learning and celebrating
together. You can get your community growing,
cooking and sharing food that is not only good for
them, but also the environment. If you think about
all the different ways in which food is produced,
moved and sold these provide ideas for possible
projects.
Across the country there are many fantastic
examples of community food projects, which
are often about more than just food. They are
often about improving things for local people, the
community and the environment. These projects
help bring people and communities together and
create a sense of local pride. Projects are often set
up to offer an alternative to the way people shop,
or to learn new skills. Setting up a food project run
by, and for, the community allows people to take
control of where their food comes from.
Local food can include some or all
of the following benefits:
• using local green spaces or unloved areas to
create food growing projects that build the
knowledge and skills to grow fresh, local,
seasonal food
• developing local enterprises and jobs around
the growing and processing of food
• creating opportunities for people to learn and
to involve schools and young people
• linking local producers, retailers, and their
customers
• promoting healthy living and improve
general wellbeing
• ensuring money is spent and stays
in the local economy
• sharing and celebrating food.
By working together a community can influence
and improve the food that they grow, produce,
and consume.
Some ideas to get you started:
Grow Food – this could include setting up a
community garden or orchard, growing food at
home on a windowsill, working with a local farmer
to guarantee a market for their produce, planting
food on roundabouts or finding it for free in the
local park. It is all about having tasty, locally grown
fruit and veg.
Be enterprising – making food and sharing or
selling it brings people together and can help
create local jobs and businesses. As a group you
could buy in bulk to make food more affordable
by setting up a co-op. You might consider setting
up a farmers’ market, a local veg box scheme or
maybe a community shop or café as a focal point
for the neighbourhood.
Make something – ifyou are buying or growing
ingredients locally then you could process the
foods to preserve them for longer. There is a long
and proud tradition of making jams and chutneys
in Britain. Also think about what happens to waste
food, which could be redistributed to charities,
turned into other things like juices and sauces,
or composted communally.
Learn something new – food projects provide
a perfect opportunity to learn from others by
volunteering. You could learn not only how to
grow or cook food but also other skills such
as managing people, handling money, planning
and marketing a product. Older people could
share their skills, such as gardening, with younger
people. Manyvoluntary organisations provide
training schemes or conferences for things like
starting a business. Getting involved can help
people back into work, find a new career,
or just help their general wellbeing and build
confidence. Local schools might also be
interested in participating.
Cook and share – food can provide a real focal
point for a variety of activities. From street parties
to cooking clubs, food can be shared, enjoyed
and celebrated.
Food
Across the country there are
many fantastic examples of
community food projects,
which are often about more
than just food.
Marie Devereaux, Sustain
02
2019

The Handmade Bakery in
Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire is
one of the pioneers of community
baking - it was the UK’s first
Community-supported Bakery.
Novice baker Dan McTiernan was
converted to bread-making after
he attended a course at River
Cottage. Having started in the
family kitchen, Dan and his wife
Johanna soon realised that the
demand for real bread went beyond
their immediate circle of family
and friends. To minimise the risk
(and start up costs), they devised
the concept of the Community-
supported Bakery — based on
a similar model to Community-
supported Agriculture. People were
invited to become members of a
Bread Club, paying a monthly fee
for a choice of six different loaves
including an English country cob,
malted granary and a pain de
campagne (or slightly more if they
wanted the choice of the weekly
specials). Sixty people subscribed
and the income from the Bread
Club gave the bakery the finance it
needed to develop a retail operation
in the town, and following a share
offer, they raised the funds to move
to a bigger premises at Upper Mills.
Shareholders received interest on
their investment as a loaf of bread
every week.
The Handmade Bakery is now
a workers’ co-operative with 16
members, none of whom were
bakers before they joined. The
bakery makes 1,200 loaves and
several hundred pastries every
week, most of which are sold in
the town. Their new canal-side
premises is also home to a café
and a cookery school, which runs
courses on the basics of artisan
baking, Italian baking and patisserie,
and a specific course in setting up
a Community-supported Bakery.
thehandmadebakery.coop
The
Handmade
Bakery
Shareholders
received interest
on their investment
as a loaf of bread
every week.
Food
Photo©Handmadebakery
02
2221

Determined to give Stroud’s farmers and
consumers a better deal, the Stroudco
Food Hub began in 2006 as a trial project.
Food is delivered to a local school where
orders are packed by volunteers and either
collected on Saturdays by customers or
delivered for a small fee.
Stroudco want to ensure everyone involved
benefits. Their customers get great, locally
produced food without paying a premium for
it while Stroudco’s producers receive higher-
than-wholesale prices and benefit from a single
delivery point.
Most of what Stroudco sells is grown or
made within 15 miles of the town. Stroudco
has no shop, holds no stock, and only has
one part-time employee, yet has managed to
grow from just eight producers and twenty
customers to supply over 400 products to
over 250 customers from 58 local suppliers.
The sheer scale of this is made possible thanks
to its website — operating as a virtual hub has
allowed Stroudco to offer a low-maintenance
model that matches suppliers’ products with
customers’ needs efficiently. As it’s grown it has
also listened to its customers and now includes
a range of store cupboard basics to help make
Stroudco a one-stop shop for its customers.
But Stroudco isn’t just about serving its
local customers, it has made its paperwork,
website and systems open-source, so other
communities can copy them. So far Stroudco
has helped 75 other communities set up their
own local food hubs.
www.stroudco.org.uk
Following the success of a similar project
in London, Cardiff Hops has brought
home-brewing of a different kind to the city by
encouraging the community to grow their own
hops. Launched in 2013, it allows anyone with a bit
of space to grow some hops. Cardiff Hops have
produced a starter pack which includes everything
that you need to get growing — they’ve chosen
a dwarfvariety of hops called Prima Donna which
is better suited to backyard growing.They also
provide ongoing support to growers.As a result,
there are hop plants growing in gardens, allotments,
parks, pots and community areas across the city.
Cardiff Hops advise people how to grow the hops
and then organise collection. It’s then taken to the
Pipes micro-brewery where it’s brewed.The first
year’s crop alone resulted in over 100 litres of ‘Taff
Temptress’ green hop ale!
The Fife Diet
Supporting local food producers can make
a real difference to your local economy
and your carbon footprint, but could you live
off locally-produced food alone for a year?
That was the challenge that Mike and Karen
Small, the creators of the Fife Diet set
themselves in 2007. They persuaded fourteen
other people from Burntisland in Fife to give it a
go and by the time the Fife Diet Project finished
in 2015, it had 5,000 participants, all passionate
about local food.
The Fife Diet’s motto was ‘think global, eat local’
but it took a common sense approach to the
problem of food miles. In those instances when
something cannot be produced locally the Fife
Diet encouraged consumers to ensure that it was
from sustainably-produced and fairly-traded
sources. They suggested an 80/20 ratio in which
80% of the food consumed is sourced locally.
The Fife Diet team produced a map of food
production across Fife and the surrounding area
– showing allotments and community gardens,
pick your own fruit farms and veg box suppliers,
farmers markets, shops, cafés, hotels and BBs
supporting locally-sourced food.
The team ran numerous workshops around
the region and hold regular public meetings,
promoting the financial, social and environmental
benefits of eating locally, but most importantly
how easy and inexpensive it is to eat locally and
make a global difference. Although the project
has officially ended, the website is still live and full
of resources, and Mike Small has written a book
that is essential reading for anyone interested in
where their food comes from and what’s wrong
with the global food system.
www.fifediet.co.uk
Stroudco Food Hub
Cardiff Hops
Food
Hill Station Café
The Hill Station Café is a unique communal
space built by the community for the whole
community. The café is run as a social enterprise,
creating jobs for local people, but it is much
more than that.
It began when a group of local people
founded the Bold Vision charity to transform
their neighbourhood, starting with a derelict
site in north London. The idea caught the
imagination of hundreds of local people who
invested time, money, skills and hard work into
turning the disused car park into the Hill Station
Café. All offers of help were welcomed and that’s
why lots of local people feel that the Hill Station is
their café. Even the name was decided by a local
competition. Since then, the back of the café has
been turned into a stage and performance area,
providing a space for local bands and singers,
drama productions and cinema screenings
alongside the art installations and exhibitions.
There is an extensive programme of performances,
events and activities with a focus on building
community cohesion, like Friendly Fridays –
community entertainment evenings run through
the spring and summer, and Marmalade Mondays
– community cooking sessions.
All staff are employed on the London Living wage
and the café also offers barista training for young
people, helping them to gain the skills, work
experience and confidence to apply for jobs.
The café also supports local businesses by
sourcing their produce locally and encouraging
local tradespeople to sell their wares in the pop-
up shop. The café seeks to be the friendliest place
to visit and work in, and it certainly is the focal
point of this community.
www.hillstation.org.uk
Photo © chatiry girl
02
2423

People and Gardens was established in
1997 by Ken Radford who found himself
fighting mental health issues due to a series of
traumatic experiences. He got better, but the
stigma he experienced when he tried to find
work was a shock and spurred him on to work
with disadvantaged people to break down
barriers and give them access to meaningful
opportunities. Based at the Eden Project’s
Watering Lane Nursery, People and Gardens
uses horticulture to provide volunteering
opportunities and paid employment for its
participants. It also generates income through
a veg bag scheme, a range of dried chillies and
mushrooms, and supplies fresh produce to cafés,
restaurants and food retailers. They have also
tried their hand at making tomato ketchup!
Over the years, more than 150 people have
learnt horticultural skills and grown food
with the group and some have gone on to
full-time study and employment.
Currently, 45 people are involved, all living
within 25 miles of the Eden Project, and ranging
in age from 16 to 70. They have conditions
such as cerebral palsy, epilepsy, mild dementia,
depression, autism, or Asperger’s Syndrome.
The nursery is regularly visited by community
groups and Ken was recently presented
with a British Empire Medal in recognition
of his work.
www.peopleandgardens.co.uk
Iwant to close down our cafés,’ says Adam
Smith. It’s an odd thing for someone who
has set up a successful project to say, but the
Real Junk Food project is a community café
with a difference. When chef Adam Smith and
his partner Johanna returned to Leeds from
Australia, it was with one idea in mind — ensure
that surplus food goes to the people who need it
most. It’s estimated that 18 million tonnes of food
is wasted annually in the UK, and 20-40% of fruit
and vegetables are rejected before they reach the
supermarkets, often because they don’t meet the
narrow criteria that supermarkets apply.
Given access to a struggling community kitchen
in Armley, Leeds, Adam and Johanna set about
putting their principles into practice. The Real Junk
Food Café intercepts surplus – but otherwise safe
– food that for one reason or another has been
labelled as waste and turns it into nutritious
meals served on a ‘pay-as-you-feel’ model.
Over 10,000 people have been fed with 20 tonnes
of unwanted but otherwise perfectly edible food
and the café has raised over £30,000. It’s a timely
solution to a global problem and a network of
Real Junk Food Cafés has sprung up accordingly.
There are now almost 50 cafés using the Real Junk
Food model, as far afield as Brazil and Los Angeles.
So why does Adam want to close them?
It’s pretty simple: he wants to be able to close
down the cafés ‘because there is no waste
to intercept. I want to close them down
because people don’t need feeding in this way.’
Unfortunately, it looks as ifAdam and those like
him will be in business for some time to come.
www.facebook.com/TheRealJunkFoodProject
‘
People and Gardens
Real Junk Food Project
Food
Photo © Lee Brown
Photo © People and Gardens
02
2625

Inspired by Slow Food Deutschland’s
Schnippel Disko (literally Scraps Disco) it was
reformulated by the French into Disco Soupe
before it arrived in the UK as Disco Soup.
The idea is simple: make use of food that would
otherwise go to waste by holding events that
combine soup-making with great music.
People turn up to cut up vegetables for the pot,
making it a sociable and well as a low impact
event. The produce comes from wholesalers,
local food producers and food banks, the only
requirement is that it must be good enough to
eat and would otherwise go to waste.
Disco Soups have been made across the world,
in Paris, London and New York. In Oxford,
800 people turned up to their third event.
If it’s too hot for soup then the French have
come up with an alternative: Disco Salade.
Disco
Soup
Food
Photo©DiscoSoup
02
2827

Food
When the Reverend Canon Sally Fogden’s
work as an agricultural chaplain showed
her that there was a need to combat the effects
of rural isolation, she hit upon the idea of a
mobile community café and information centre.
Together with three colleagues she purchased
a caravan, gathered together some relevant
information, made some cakes, and took the
caravan into rural Suffolk. The caravan was
set up on village greens, church car parks or
wherever there was room. People welcomed
the chance to have somewhere to meet and
chat in this way and made full use of the
information by accessing services they
previously hadn’t known existed.
Word spread and with the aid of funding the
project has grown to meet the increasing
demand over the last ten years. It now has
three members of staff — Ann and Garry,
and Admin Assistant Penny who is tucked
away in the office two days a week.
Affectionately known, as the ‘Coffee Caravan’
and supported by an amazing team
of volunteers, it operates two vehicles
acrossthe whole county, often acting as
a catalyst for change within a community,
motivating them to start their own events
and activities and then supports them as
they begin this process.
Now members of the Campaign to End
Loneliness, they are continuing to find
new ways to bring people together,
whether tea dances, ‘Memory Lane’ Cream
Teas, Golden Age Fairs, and Big Lunches.
www.ruralcoffeecaravan.org.uk
Rural Coffee Caravan
Food
When Vicky Swift had a glut of food from
her allotment the last thing she wanted
to do was waste it. Having offered it to her
family and friends, she still had far more than
she needed. A keen bread-maker as well, she
set up a Facebook page to arrange food swaps
in the area, with the idea that people would
swap food door-to-door. Although it worked,
it soon became evident that there had to be an
easier and more sociable way to share surplus
food. Together with a former colleague Sue
Jewitt, they began running a series of food
swaps as Apple for Eggs. With Apple for Eggs’s
help there are now regional swaps going on
around the UK and Apple for Eggs is now a
social enterprise.
www.applesforeggs.com
Apples for Eggs
Photos © Apples for eggs
Photo © Steve Tanner
02
3029

Unlike the rest of the economy where
competition and not cooperation are the
norm, community-based projects are often
willing to lend a hand to one another.
When a local micro-brewery came on the
market in Topsham, Devon, two friends
decided to take it on with the help of their
local community. It was a daunting task
— at that point there was only one other
cooperatively-owned brewery in the UK,
the Hesket Newmarket Brewery in the Lake
District. Fortunately, the Hesket Newmarket
Brewery was willing to advise and helped
them to overcome some of the challenges
the project presented.
Sixty local investors stumped up £70,000
between them, in return for an annual
dividend in beer or cash, but it’s the volunteers
who really make Topsham Ales special.
The entire brewery is run by volunteers,
who between them produce around 14
different kinds of beer every year –
approximately 1,500 gallons of beer.
The brewery also supports the local
community by donating beer to good causes,
such as local raffles.
www.topsham-ales.co.uk
Topsham
Ales
Food
Unlike the rest of
the economy where
competition and not
cooperation are the norm,
community-based projects
are often willing to lend a
hand to one another.
Photo©SteveTanner
02
3231

1 Find out who else has an interest
in food locally and whether they have any
experience or skills in growing or producing.
Does your neighbour enjoy making jam?
Do you have allotments nearby? Where is
your nearest farm? This might help you to
develop some great ideas and get involved
in helping to start something.
2 Review what local food is already
available. Do you have a bakery?
Where do people buy their veg from
at the moment? Are there any gaps
or opportunities?
3 Research other community food
projects. What’s worked in a similar
area to yours? Are there organisations
that might be able to offer advice
and information? Make contact and
ask questions.
4 Use what’s available in your
community. Is there a derelict piece
of local land you could use to grow veg?
Does the church hall have a kitchen you
could use to make food? Could your local
pub have space for a community shop?
5 Ask the local community what they
would like to do or what the local issues
are. Do they want to be able to buy
local fruit, learn about beekeeping,
cut their food bill or learn how to cook?
This will help you set your aims and
objectives and plan your next steps.
6 Be realistic. Community-led food
projects can take time to set up so
if you want to do something quickly
then maybe think about encouraging
people to compost their food waste.
Something like a veg box scheme could
take up to a year as it involves buying,
packing, distribution, marketing and
collecting money.
7 Keep the community informed
If you set up a food project think about how
are you going to let people know about it.
Plan a launch, hold an event, think about
how you could advertise it, do you need
a regular newsletter or a Facebook page
or just a one-off poster?
8 Enjoy local food. Don’t forget that good
food should taste great, so use any excuse
to share it with others. Do you have a mix
of different cultures that could exchange
different foods or recipes? How about
celebrating the launch of your project with
a party only using locally grown or produced
food? Celebrate your successes along your
journey with the community. Share food
and stimulate your taste buds.
9 Expand your project. If you launch
a community café think what happens to
any wasted food. Could a local charity use it?
Could the local school use the café to learn
about running a business?
0 Plan for the future. If you set up your
food project with some initial funding try
and make sure it can continue and you can
cover any ongoing running costs. A local
food co-op could offer community shares,
think about local fundraising for a community
garden and ask local businesses for support
with equipment. If your one-off event went
well then consider making it more regular
so that people can plan to attend or help.
1
Campaign to Protect
Rural England
www.cpre.org.uk
Capital Growth
www.capitalgrowth.org
Coops UK
www.uk.coop
Eating better
www.eating-better.org
Food Co-ops
www.foodcoops.org
Food for Life partnership
www.foodforlife.org.uk
Garden Organic
www.gardenorganic.org.uk
Local Food
www.localfoodgrants.org
The Federation of City Farms
and Community Gardens
www.farmgarden.org.uk
Incredible Edible
www.incredibleediblenetwork.org.uk
Making Local Food Work
www.makinglocalfoodwork.co.uk
Soil Association
www.soilassociation.org
Sustainable Food Trust
www.sustainablefoodtrust.org
FoodCycle
www.foodcycle.org.uk
Sustain
www.sustainweb.org
Food
Top Tips
For more information
Food
02
3433

Housing
There are now many places in the UK where
local people can no longer afford to stay in
the community they feel they belong to. Families
have to move away when they would prefer to
remain in the place they grew up in; older people
are forced to move away from the community
they have spent most of their lives in, just at a
time when they are becoming increasingly reliant
on support from friends and neighbours. The UK
is not building enough homes to meet demand,
private rents are rising at a rate above inflation,
and house prices are predicted to rise by 35%
by 2020.* Communities often feel that homes
are being built by developers with profit in mind
rather than sensitivity to the local area, appropriate
design, quality and affordability. Communities
want homes that help to make their community
a thriving, neighbourly and sustainable place –
but many feel that these are lacking.
In response, there is a growing and exciting
movement of people creating housing for
themselves or their community – Community-led
Housing. This approach can enable local people
to have control over the kind of housing that is
developed in their area, and who can live in these
homes. This introduction is mainly concerned with
the Community Land Trust (CLT) approach, which
is just one way to do Community-led Housing,
but in this chapter you will find examples of other
approaches, such as cohousing.
Community Land Trusts are local organisations
set up and run by ordinary people to develop and
manage homes and other assets. The Community
Land Trust’s main task is to make sure these
homes are genuinely affordable, based on what
people actually earn in the area, not just for now
but for every future occupier. There are now 170
Community Land Trusts across the country, half
of which formed in the last two years, as well as
over 100 cohousing groups, 120 self-help housing
groups, 250 co-operatives and a growing number
of group self-build projects.
Community Land Trusts and other forms of
Community-led Housing make communities
stronger by enabling local people to take control
of the things that are important to them in the
places they live. Many communities would like
more say over housing developments in their
area and most want to ensure that housing is
provided for local people, that developments
are appropriate for the local area and in the right
locations, and that they are of high quality and
reflect good design principles.
The UK is not building enough
homes to meet demand, private
rents are rising at a rate above
inflation, and house prices are
predicted to rise by 35% by 2020.*
Community Land Trusts can also provide a
means for communities to take on other assets
in addition to housing. A CLT is usually formed
to develop homes, but once a housing project is
well underway the CLT might have the capacity
and confidence to take on other assets in the
community. A CLT is a legally constituted group,
with membership throughout the community,
a management committee that is used to making
decisions together and has the confidence of
others like the local authority and funders.
Once it has successfully completed a development
it will have a track record of raising finance,
managing projects, and will have an income
stream through rents paid by tenants, or by
ground rents paid by Housing Associations. The
community will be in a strong position to respond
if local assets and services are threatened, for
example if the village shop is looking like shutting
then the CLT could explore whether it could be
turned into a community shop.
*National Housing Federation 2013/14 Homes Truth report
Housing
There is a growing and exciting
movement of people creating
housing for themselves or
their community.
Alison Ward, Trustee, The National
Community Land Trust Network
03
3635

The brainchild of David Michael,
a local property developer,
Springhill Cohousing was the first
new-build cohousing scheme
in the UK. It was completed
in 2003 and has since become
one of Britain’s most successful
cohousing developments.
Close to the centre of Stroud,
Springhill consists of 34 homes,
ranging from one-bedroom
flats to five-bedroom houses.
Each dwelling has its own kitchen,
garden and living areas, but the
centre of the community is the
three-storey common house.
The common house has a kitchen
for shared meals and social
activities, the residents have the
option to eat together four nights
a week, and everyone has to cook
at least once a month. It also has a
large shared garden and vegetable
plot. The residents range in age
from infancy to their 70s, and
include families, couples and single
people who all seem to benefit
from the balance between privacy
and communal life. The homes
themselves are all self-contained
and there is no obligation to join in
with communal activities, but each
member is obliged to do 20 hours
of community work a year –
mostly cleaning and maintenance.
The buildings themselves are
designed to be energy-efficient
and many have solar panels to keep
costs low. The main pathways are
pedestrianised with car parking
on the outskirts of the site, which
makes it much safer for children
and pets.
David Michael has since gone
on to develop two successful
‘Coflat’ projects in Stroud offering
community living for those on
a smaller budget or requiring
smaller properties.
www.therightplace.net/coco/public
Springhill
Cohousing
Stroud
The residents range in age
from infancy to their 70s,
and include families,
couples and single people
who all seem to benefit from
the balance between privacy
and communal life.
Housing
Photo©NickyFerguson
03
3837

Food
Christow is a small village of about 850 people
on the edge of the Dartmoor National Park
in Devon. A group of local residents formed a
Community Land Trust in 2011 to provide suitable
housing for younger and older inhabitants of
the village in order to enable them to stay in
the community. Those involved in the CLT felt
strongly that it was important to preserve a social
mix and to offer homes to those with strong
local connections to the village, but who were
struggling to find suitable housing there.
The CLT bought a piece of land from Teignbridge
District Council for £1 and worked with Teign
Housing, a local Housing Association, to bring the
project to fruition. Crucially, the CLT consulted
regularly with the local community to ensure that
homes were being built in the most appropriate
place, with the best design and for the people
who needed it most. The CLT is currently building
18 homes on a site in the heart of the village.
Fourteen of them will be for rent as affordable
housing and the other four will be sold to older
people on the affordable principle. The homes
for rent are all built to full PassivHaus standards,
which will make them energy efficient, costing
less than £100 per year to run. This will be the first
PassivHaus development in any National Park.
As local people had been consulted and involved
in the process from the outset the scheme
received support locally for its plans when it
came to submit a planning application, despite
the fact that the development is in a National
Park and features housing of a contemporary
design. The Christow CLT won the Most Effective
Community Award at the Devon Rural Housing
Awards in 2013.
www.christowparishcouncil.gov.uk
Christow CLT
Housing
Low Impact Living Affordable Community (LILAC),
is an affordable ecological housing project in
Bramley, West Leeds. LILAC’s buildings are designed
to have minimal environmental impact both to
build and operate; its house-purchasing schemes,
shared amenities and low utility bills also make
them more affordable. The shared ownership of
the project, which also features a common house
and an open public space, means that there is a
ready-made community.
Built on a 0.7-hectare site on a south-facing slope,
LILAC uses a ‘passive solar’design, which meansthat
the insulating materials and design ofthe buildings
worktogetherto store heat fromthe sun inthe
winterand keepthem cool inthe summer.This saves
moneyon both heating and airconditioning, making
the houses energy-efficientthroughouttheyear.
But LILAC is about more than just the buildings.
The residents are committed to reducing the
environmental impact of their daily activities
through car sharing, pooling resources and
tools, and even growing food on allotments.
The common house is central to the community
with cooking facilities and an eating area,
laundry facilities, a meeting space, a play area,
an office and guest rooms. There is also a pond,
a shared garden and an outdoor play area.
The homes are owned and managed by
a fully mutual co-operative housing society.
The central ethos of the project is about
building a sustainable community in which
all of its residents canparticipate fully.
www.lilac.coop
LILAC Housing
Photo © Modcell
Photo © Christow CLT
03
4039

Postlip Hall
In the late 1960s, Sandy McMillan got
together with a group of friends who
all wanted to choose the neighbours they
would live and socialise with. Together
they bought Postlip Hall, a beautiful Grade I
listed manor house in the Cotswolds and
became one of the first cohousing projects
in the UK.
Postlip Hall is a stunning Jacobean house set
in 15 acres of private land. The manor house
is split into eight ‘units’ providing private homes
for eight families, who are jointly responsible
for the upkeep and maintenance of the
impressive house, grounds, organic kitchen
garden and animals. There is a good balance
between private and communal life.
Postlip Hall also boasts a 12th-century chapel
and a medieval tithe barn, perfect for hosting
events like the Cotswold Beer Festival,
music concerts and wedding celebrations
as a way to raise money needed for repairs
and maintenance. Postlip has also developed
links with the local community by opening
up the grounds to schools, forest schools,
art groups and others.
Postlip Hall works as a Housing Association
and they have typical formal governance
and structures. But they also work together
informally too. Everyone contributes to the
general running of Postlip, keeping it together
physically and socially and sharing ideas.
www.postliphall.org.uk
Housing
The manor house is split
into eight ‘units’ providing
private homes for eight
families, who are jointly
responsible for the upkeep
and maintenance of the
impressive house, grounds
and organic kitchen
garden and animals.
Photo©GraemeChurchyard
03
4241

London’s first Community Land Trust,
East London Community Land Trust (ELCLT),
was set up in 2007 to create permanently
affordable homes for local families in one of the
most expensive cities in the world. It grew from
a Citizens UK (CUK) campaign in 2004 to support
the London 2012 Olympic bid on the basis of a
legacy for the people of East London, including
CLT homes. Its first project, on the site of the
former St Clement’s hospital, will provide 23
homes for local people at prices linked to median
incomes. The homes are due for completion in
2016. This will mean there will be homes for sale
for less than 50% of theirvalue on the open market.
East London Community Land Trust has more
than 1,000 members. It aims to humanise the
development process by involving communities
from design through to operation. It created the
Shuffle Festival for creative cultural and community
uses of St Clement’s and the surrounding area,
animating spaces and connecting local people.
ELCLT continues to maintain a positive connection
with Citizens UK, offering strong routes into local
communities, a source of demand and volunteers.
Besides the direct benefit it brings to the people it
houses, ELCLT plays an important role in bringing
different groups together, fostering more cohesive
and sustainable neighbourhoods.
www.eastlondonclt.co.uk
It wasn’t the prospect of more houses,
but the question of who was going to
build them that spurred the residents and
campaigners of the Ashley Vale Action Group
to acquire the site of a former scaffolding
company in Bristol. Having banded together
to prevent a developer from taking on the site,
the residents’ association decided to take the
next logical step and formed a company to
develop the site themselves. The original plans
to share the development with a Housing
Association for the elderly had to be shelved,
but in the end the Ashley Vale Action Group
bought the land and built the houses. The result?
An award-winning development of forty homes,
including individually designed timber-framed
houses, a row of self-finisher houses (the walls
and roofs were put in and the purchasers did
the rest) and a refurbished office block that now
contains flats and workshop space for three
local businesses. The development even boasts
a village green, accessible from the garden gates
of the properties.
wildgoosespace.org.uk
Beer CLT was established by local residents
in 2013 with the aim of providing affordable
housing, owned and managed by the
community for the people of Beer. Their first
project was Little Hemphay, a development of
seven affordable homes (four rental and three
shared equity) all with a requirement to be
rented or sold to people with an established
Beer connection. Crucial to the success of
the project was the support of East Devon
District Council, which provided a £1,060,000
development loan via the Public Works Loan
Board, and the Homes and Communities
Agency (HCA) who provided capital grant
to finance the scheme.
The homes have now been built and are
occupied by local people. The majority of
the loan has been paid through the sale of
the shared equity homes, and the remaining
balance has been re-financed by the group
as a long-term mortgage. This mortgage will
be serviced by rental income paid off over 25
years. The retained rental houses, plus 20% of
the equity houses, gives the CLT a current asset
value of approximately £950,000 which can
be used for the benefit of the community in
perpetuity and used for community projects
in the years to come.
www.beerclt.org
Norton-sub-Hamdon
Community Land Trust
Local people in the South Somerset village of
Norton-sub-Hamdon set up a Community
Land Trust because the need for affordable
homes for local people identified in the 2005
housing needs survey still hadn’t been addressed
seven years later. The CLT led in all aspects
of the development of ten homes, including
the design, the site location, and who would
be eligible to live in the homes, and worked
in partnership with Yarlington Housing which
financed, built and now manages the homes.
The CLT felt that the success of their project
was partly due to having built a good working
relationship with their Housing Association
partner, and a willingness for both parties to
make compromises.
The CLT has been set up to help the community
to become more sustainable in the long term,
and so when the only shop in the village looked
like it was about to close, the CLT was in a good
position to step in and take the shop over
as a community asset. The CLT now has 150
members and has raised over £30,000 from
local people in shares, and grants, to take
on the shop. It is now running the shop
with the support of 40 local volunteers.
Norton-sub-Hamdon does not plan to stop
at community housing and a shop; the CLT
is already considering what other assets
and projects it could take on within the
village to help it to continue to be a thriving,
sustainable community.
East London CLT
Beer Community Land Trust
Housing
Ashley Vale Action Group
Photo © Martin Schofield
Photo © East London CLT
Photo © Norton Sub Hamdon
03
4443

Sitting next to the river Lune, on
the outskirts of the village of
Halton, Lancaster Cohousing is a
thriving development of 41 private
homes, ranging in size from one
to three bedrooms. As with other
cohousing projects, the private
homes are clustered around the
Common House, containing a large
kitchen, dining and relaxed seating
areas. There are also shared
children’s rooms, guest bedrooms,
a laundry, bike shed and tool shed.
There are lots of elements that
make Lancaster Cohousing stand
out though. Ecological values are at
the heart of Lancaster Cohousing,
from the planning and design of
the site including the very limited
parking and a community car club,
orchard, woodland and wildlife
areas, to the technology used
within the build of the PassivHaus
homes such as the super insulation
and airtightness, and a biomass
boiler and electricity micro-grid.
Shared meals are also vegetarian
and vegan, which many believe
is a much more sustainable way
of eating.
There is also an association with
Halton Lune Hydro. Two of the
residents are involved in the
200kW hydropower scheme which
contributes additional renewable
energy to the Lancaster Cohousing
community and beyond, with
profits being ploughed back into
community projects.
A vibrant business environment,
Halton Mill, has also been
developed on the site, where small
businesses, social enterprises and
community-based organisations
can flourish. The project encourages
the sharing of resources, facilities
and ideas, and helps reduce the
environmental impact of the site’s
business activities.
Lancaster Cohousing is a
supportive environment where
all members aim to reduce
their individual impacts on the
environment at a pace and to
a level they each choose.
www.lancastercohousing.org.uk
Lancaster
Cohousing
Lancaster Cohousing is a
supportive environment
where all members aim
to reduce their individual
impacts on the environment
Housing
Photo©NinaOsswald
03
4645

Food
Back in the mid-eighties, a group of students
and young unemployed people unable to
secure decent housing, pooled their Giros to buy
a house. They worked together to renovate the
property. When they’d finished, they started to
look around for more houses to renovate and
rent to other people on benefits who couldn’t
afford a deposit.
In 2007, Giroscope became a registered
charity formalising their dedication to helping
people with a housing need. Unlike other
landlords they welcome those on benefits,
often engaging them in the renovation of
newly purchased properties to build a sense
of community and commitment. They pride
themselves on ‘turning empty houses into
homes’ – bringing back into the community
houses that have stood empty and virtually
derelict for years. More recently they have
started to focus on making their renovations
as energy- efficient as possible through the
installation of solar technologies alongside
retrofitting solutions like draft-proofing and
solid wall insulation. As the community grew,
a variety of co-operative ventures sprang up
to fulfil other needs – a co-operative shop
and printers, a vegetarian café, a crèche, and
a Social Enterprise Park housed in renovated
stables in the heart of west Hull, providing
space for small enterprises and community
businesses, as well as office space for the
growing Giroscope team.
Giroscope also offers a wide range
of volunteering and work experience
opportunities. Working with local schools
and colleges, ex-offenders, long-term
unemployed and people with learning
difficulties, they offer real hands-on
experience of most of the building trades,
encouraging and supporting those who
wish to go on to access further external
training and find employment.
www.giroscope.org.uk
Giroscope
Housing
On a hillside above Bevendean, Brighton,
a group of seven women and nine men,
with fourteen children between them and an
almost total lack of relevant experience,
managed to build not just ten family homes
but a community.
The project started in 1996 when four people with
no permanent housing and little hope of being
rehoused approached Brighton Council with a
proposal to build their own houses on council-
owned land. The rest of the group were recruited
from the council’s housing list. After two years
of lobbying the group obtained planning
permission and were ready to start building.
For the next two and a halfyears the members
of the Hedgehog cooperative each put 30 hours
per week into the project.
The ten houses were designed byArchitype
and are amongst the most energy-efficient and
ecologically sound in the country. With recycled
cellulose insulation under grass roofs, British
grown larch and Douglas fir for cladding, verandas
and decking and as few chemicals as possible in
the timber, paint, stains and waxes, they are also
amongst the most ecologically sound. What’s
more, each house is unique – individually designed
by the inhabitants.
For the self-builders the effects have been
transformative, with members talking about the
confidence, skills and sense of safety they have
gained. When asked about the most satisfying
part of the process, founder member Paul Crouch
answers simply, ‘Gaining a community.’
Hedgehog Self-build
Photo©Architype
Photo © Mark Harvey, iD8 Photography
03
4847

Food
Priced out of the London housing market
and uninspired by the ‘affordable’ housing
on offer, this group of Londoners has decided
to use their collective professional expertise
in urban design, planning, construction
project management and affordable housing
delivery to develop their own housing solution
– a community of ‘naked houses’. These are
new houses, professionally built to a habitable
standard but stripped back to the bare essentials
enabling the people who live there to create
the homes they want, suited to their individual
needs and budgets. They can add internal
walls to create rooms or keep them open-plan,
and choose their internal fixtures themselves
in their own time.
Building a community is at the heart of the
proposal; the people who are going to live
there will work with the architects, collectively
designing and deciding, including shared
internal and external space, to create a vibrant
neighbourhood which meets actual needs.
Naked House is currently a Community Interest
Company, a not-for-profit organization, with a
pledge to keep the resale costs far enough below
market value to remain affordable for the wider
community. It also plans to set up a Community
Land Trust managed by the residents, to ‘lock in’
the land use for community benefit for future
generations. All decision-making about the
communal space and the community as a whole
will be taken collectively.
Naked House is proving popular, with nearly 100
interested individuals and families in the east
London area hoping to join the first development.
The search for appropriate land is underway,
architects are on board, and their designs for
a community of self-build ‘naked’ homes have
won an award. A Naked House community is
looking like a reality.
www.nakedhouse.org
Naked House
Housing
The people ofTotnes are set to be the first to
use new community planning regulations,
submitting a Community Right to Build Order to
transform a former milk processing factory site
into a mixed-use development designed with
and for the people ofTotnes themselves.
When Dairy Crest announced in 2007 that they
would be closing the factory, with a significant
loss in local employment, the community was
devastated. Various plans for the site were put
forward, and Atmos Totnes was formed, initially
as the Sustainable Business Park Group, with
the aim of bringing the land into community
ownership to ensure future development met
the needs of the town.
Years of community pressure and campaigning
followed. Grade II listed status was eventually
secured for the pumping station constructed
by Isambard Kingdom Brunel during the site’s
previous life as the base for Brunel’s atmospheric
railway (hence the name), halting its demolition.
With a whole lot ofvision, inspiration, persistence
and commitment Atmos eventually secured an
agreement to develop the site in tandem with
Dairy Crest and a selected developer, purchasing
a portion of the site for one Totnes Pound.
The Totnes Community Development Society,
an Industrial and Provident Society set up by
the Atmos project, is committed to pioneering
community-led development that is rooted in
the local economy. The project has significant
local support and its patrons include Hugh
Fearnley-Whittingstall, Kevin McCloud and
the Eden Project’s co-founder SirTim Smit.
Community consultations are currently underway
and the project’s future will be decided by a
community referendum in 2016. Atmos Totnes
will be owned and run by the community, and
there will also be opportunities for the community
to invest through a community share launch.
The site will offer affordable housing and spaces
for fledgling businesses and entrepreneurs; it will
also create jobs and provide training for people
living and working in the area. Atmos Totnes aims
to become the heart of a new economy as well
as a leading light in community development.
www.atmostotnes.org
Atmos Totnes
Image Levitt Bernstein Architects © Naked House
Photo © Totnes Community Development Society
03
5049

1 Ask the local council whether affordable
housing is needed in your community.
Many villages and towns have completed
housing needs surveys which provide evidence
of housing need in a place. If there is evidence
of housing need then the council ought to
be agreeable to exploring ways of addressing
housing need. If no housing needs survey has
been completed recently ask why not and if
it can be done, particularly if you are aware
anecdotally of local people who want to live
in the community but can’t afford to. It’s harder
to get others on board if there is no formal
evidence that new homes are needed for
local people.
2 Get a group together. Talk to friends and
neighbours about Community-led Housing
to build up some momentum around planning
for homes in your community. Other key
people could include parish councillors, people
running community groups, people in housing
need, or just people interested in making
their community a better place to live. A wide
range of people get involved in Community-
led Housing projects, and their motivations for
getting involved can be very different – but they
all want to make the place they live better and
stronger.
3 Get some advice. There are professional
advisers and support projects throughout
the country that can help you to make plans.
They can guide you in the right direction
and may be able to support your projects
from the beginning to completion.
For Community Land Trusts, there is also
funding which may be available for paying
for professional advice where required
(see www.communitylandstrusts.org.uk).
4 See it and believe it. Visit an existing
Community-led Housing project and talk
to the people involved. Ask them about
the challenges and solutions to problems
that they have found. You will be inspired,
gain practical knowledge, and make contacts
that could be useful for the future.
5 Talk to your community.
Community-led Housing projects are
most successful when they have a wide
membership across their community.
That’s why anyone who lives and works
in the community must have the opportunity
to join a Community Land Trust, and those
members run the CLT, so the projects
are directly accountable to the whole
community. Local people can be really
sensitive to developments happening in
their area; the most successful projects
keep the wider community regularly
updated on what the CLT is doing, and
ask the wider community for their input
on key decisions – such as where the
housing should go.
6 Expect some opposition.
Every community has a minority who
reject change. Opposition should be
carefully considered, but always be
kept in perspective and the wider
community benefit, and views of the
majority, should be the most important
factor when making decisions. You can’t
please everyone and housing can be
divisive. The experience of most CLTs
is that opposition dies away when homes
are built. Local people always have very
thoughtful and challenging questions
at the beginning of a project. Sometimes
those with the most challenging questions
become great supporters of the CLT
and take an active role in it. People are
passionate about their places. If there
is a lot of opposition you should question
if the plans are genuinely community-led.
Housing
Top Tips
Housing
7 Be practical. If you want to get homes
built in a reasonably short time frame, then
compromises will need to be made. You
should decide what the most important
things are to your community. If it is energy
efficiency, then this will be a point that you
are less likely to compromise on, but you may
need to make concessions in other areas.
Building homes is expensive and will need
to be financed, either by your group or by
development partners, and it is unlikely that
all of your aspirations will be met. You will
need to prioritise so that you know where
you can compromise.
8 Look for partners. Some people involved
in Community-led Housing projects have
lots of time and energy to devote to running
the project, finding the finance required and
building the houses. Others, have limited time
available and finding partners can reduce
the size of the commitment and reduce your
exposure to risk. Many CLTs have therefore
chosen to partner with Housing Associations.
9 Establish a good relationship with
your local authority. You will need
planning permission to build homes so you
will need to involve the local authority at an
early stage in your plans. They can help you
to make good decisions and avoid time-
consuming mistakes, and it will be easier to
make the planning application when the time
comes if the local authority knows who you
are and what you are doing. Local authorities
also have targets to develop affordable
homes in their communities. If they see
that you are dedicated, well informed and
representative of the wider community they
will listen to you.
0 Enjoy the process. Community-led
Housing projects can forge friendships,
create alliances, build bridges, develop
shared knowledge, and create a lasting
legacy for the community.
For more information
The National Community
Land Trust Network
www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk
UK Cohousing Network
www.cohousing.org.uk
National Association of Custom
and Self Build (NACSBA)
www.nacsba.org.uk
Confederation of Cooperative Housing
www.cch.coop
Self Help Housing
www.self-help-housing.org
The Wessex CLT Project
www.wessexca.co.uk
Community Land Trust East
www.clteast.org
The Cumbria and Beyond
Community Land Trust Project
www.crht.org.uk
Cornwall Community Land Trust
www.cornwallclt.org
Wiltshire Community Land Trust
www.wiltshirecommunitylandtrust.org.uk
Lincolnshire Community Land Trust
www.lclt.co.uk
1
03
5251

Enterprise
With a little imagination, a lot of passion,
the right people and a plan, all sorts of
services can become the focal point for our
communities when they are run and managed
as community businesses. Launderettes, post
offices, nurseries, cinemas, swimming pools,
corner shops, crèches, pubs, supermarkets; these
are just a few examples of local services that have
been developed by local people, and are being run
by local people for local people.
The one thing these shops and services have in
common is that they are responding to a need in
their local community. All too often these services
have been lost, or because of the need to remain
‘profitable’ they are too expensive for many of us
to use regularly.
How do they start?
Most are a response to something that is missing
in a community or that exists but doesn’t really
work in a way that meets local needs. From
there, it’s then a question of working out what’s
needed, who needs it, why they need it, and how
they will use it if provided. And how do these
conversations occur? Well, over coffee, picking
the kids up from school, in the pub, over dinner,
anywhere people meet and talk! A conversation
has the power to change your neighbourhood.
So what is a community business?
Community businesses usually share a number
of characteristics:
• Local people lead their development and
management; this is what we mean by
community-led.
• They are owned by people living and working
in the community or neighbourhood they
are serving. Often common and collective
ownership is important, sometimes they
are charities.
• Local people determine how the business
develops. So they are community controlled.
Sometimes there is a Board of Trustees
elected from a wide membership of local
people, sometimes they are co-operatives.
Whatever the structure, local people
ultimately determine how, when and what
the development of the business will be.
• They all aim to be financially self-sustaining.
So, whilst they often need to use grants,
donations, fundraising activity or loans
to start up, they all have plans which they
follow in order to stand alone through their
trading activity.
• Any financial surplus is usually ploughed
back into the business or other activities
in the local community.
• Many are socially and environmentally
responsible. They all work to be as inclusive
in their communities and neighbourhoods as
possible and often they are seeking to reduce
their impact on the environment.
What are the benefits?
1. They help to provide meaningful activity
for local people. (Often this involves
employment from the start and therefore
cash when you get paid, or can lead
to employment and cash.) Being valued
by your community for your contribution
and the benefit the whole community
gets from your contribution is a big first
step towards local people working together
for the good of their community.
2. They bring people together and provide
a basis for them to work together for the
good of their community in the future.
3. The money generated by community
businesses can be kept in the local
community with the right approach.
It goes round: if I spend in your shop,
you get paid, if you spend in my shop
(or other local shops), other local businesses
get paid. So, community businesses really
can help create a local economy.
Enterprise
The money generated
by community businesses
can be kept in the local
community.
Dave Chapman, Triformis
04
5453

The Big
Lemon CIC
Back in 2007, two childhood friends, Tom
and Graeme, got together to see if they
could design a bus service that was affordable,
sustainable, and lots of fun. Tom held a meeting
in a local pub to see whether there was any
interest and The Big Lemon was born.
The fleet of distinctive yellow vehicles runs on
biodiesel sourced from restaurants, cafés and
hotels in the Brighton and Hove area, making
for a much more environmentally friendly
operation. Just as importantly, The Big Lemon
gang aims to offer a friendly and enjoyable
service that passengers would choose in
preference to a private car, encouraging a shift
to shared transport, and it seems they might be
on to something – their Facebook page is full of
comments from happy passengers thanking their
friendly drivers.
As well as a regular bus route and a University
campus service, The Big Lemon offers a festival
coach service and bus hire for weddings, parties
and school trips – the latter can include learning
about the use of waste oil for fuel and a trip to the
processing plant. The Big Lemon is a community
interest company and takes its commitment to the
community seriously – it also runs Sunday Walks
in the spring and summer and they step in to fill
gaps left by traditional services – taking on routes
on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve in 2010 after
Brighton Hove Buses announced their services
would stop running at 9pm.
A happy team, happy passengers and kinder
to the environment; it’s a big thumbs up for
The Big Lemon.
www.thebiglemon.com
Enterprise
The Big Lemon gang
aims to offer a friendly
and enjoyable service
that passengers would
choose in preference
to a private car.
04
5655

Take a book, return a book’ – that is the simple
idea behind Little Free Libraries, which are
popping up all over the world. Back in 2009
Todd Bol built a small model of a school house
in his front garden in Hudson, USA, as a tribute
to his mother, and filled it with books to share.
Neighbours and friends loved it and soon Todd
was making more models and giving them
away. In 2012, ‘Little Free Libraries’ was officially
established as a non-profit corporation with
the purpose of promoting literacy and a love
of reading worldwide.
From Tod’s one tiny act, a worldwide movement
has been born. By January 2015 more than 25,000
Little Free Libraries had been registered and they
just keep popping up!
The Little Free Library Project supports the
movement by building and installing boxes here
in the UK. It works with individuals, communities
and schools, focusing particularly on locations
where they will have the greatest benefit to the
community. The Little Free Libraries are also free
public art installations; each is built by hand and a
wide range of artists are tasked with adding the
inspiring designs. Some, however, use existing
structures to house the books – a couple in
Dorset have transformed a decommissioned red
telephone box into a well-used village library. It’s
a popular idea - there are now over a hundred
telephone box libraries in the UK.
As well as encouraging us to read, share books and
tackle adult literacy, the Little Free Libraries lead
to genuine community engagement. With virtually
no barriers to participation, ‘Stewards’ of the
Libraries say that they have met more neighbours
and passers-by than ever before and these
conversations can provide a starting point for other
community projects and activities.
www.littlefreelibraryproject.org.uk
www.littlefreelibrary.org
Little Free Library
Marina Postma had been striving for
sustainability on a local level for a while
before launching the first Repair Café in 2009 in
Amsterdam. Since then the Repair Café Foundation
has helped individuals to get 750 café s get off the
ground, in 18 countries across the world. Repair
Cafés are free meeting places where people
can repair their items with help from volunteer
specialists and with access to tools and materials.
With their slogan ‘Toss it? No Way!’, Repair Cafés
help breathe new life into items that would
otherwise be thrown away. Roughly 13,000 items
a month or 200,000 kilos a year are saved from
landfill with the valuable practical knowledge
of a range of skilled volunteers and ‘fixperts’.
There are currently 19 Repair Cafés in the UK.
With support from the localTransition Group,
community members set up a Repair Café in
Llandrindod, Wales in 2014, having seen one on a
visit to Newport, and one year on it is thriving.As
well as helping to reduce mountains of waste, the
Repair Café has helped to bring the community
together in new ways, discovering a wealth of
know-how and practical skills close to home.
They are fun social events where you can learn
a new skill or a handy fix over a cuppa, as well as
coming home with a working toaster, a darned
favourite jumper or a revived and restyled chair.
www.repaircafe.org
LiverpoolPlazaCommunityCinema
In the Waterloo district of Liverpool lies a
neighbourhood gem, a cinema so integral
to the local community that residents have
battled tirelessly to keep its doors open.
The beautiful art deco independent picture
house opened in 1939. It is the perfect antidote
to the anonymous multiplex cinema and it is a
much-loved landmark.
The Plaza’s battle began in 1995, when a twelve-
year-old boy spotted a planning notice which
put the cinema up for development. He initiated
a campaign to save the Plaza which was taken
up by local residents, who set up a fundraising
committee in order to buy the cinema.
They opened a dedicated charity shop to raise the
money to buy and run the cinema, raising over
£350,000 through the sale of donated goods.
Through the hard work of the committee and the
volunteers the cinema was leased and an option
was acquired to purchase it from the owners.
The cinema reopened in 1997, and in 2000,
the committee successfully purchased the
Plaza for £325,000. The cinema itself is now
owned by the community and all profits go back
into the running and maintenance of the cinema.
Today, both the cinema and the dedicated charity
shop are run almost exclusively by teams of
volunteers, who donate their time to ensure
the cinema continues to function as a central
part of the community.
It’s easy to understand why the Plaza has
a place in the hearts of Waterloo’s residents:
the cinema aims to benefit, educate and
entertain a wide spectrum of residents: older
people, children, families, and those with
disabilities. As a result entrance fees are kept low,
and there are dedicated autism- and disability-
friendly screenings with reduced volume and
lower level lighting. Art schemes run for local
schools are displayed in the foyer, binding the
cinema even more closely to its community.
Repair Café
Enterprise
Photo © Rick Obst
04
5857

For more than 35 years, a small
fleet of distinctive yellow and
blue ferryboats has worked out of
Bristol’s Floating Harbour. But in
2012 it looked like they’d reached
the end of the pier when the
company went bust. Luckily, within
months, a group of community-
minded business people had
stepped in to save the Bristol Ferry.
The Bristol Ferry service first
started in the late seventies with
the purchase of a small open boat,
the ‘Margaret’, which was the
last operating ferry connecting
Shirehampton with Pill on the
River Avon. The Margaret was
soon taken on by Ian Bungard
who, along with his famous dog
Jango, operated the ferryboat all
year round, come rain or shine.
Ian expanded the ferry fleet to
five boats but in 2002 he decided
to sell the company and retire to
Spain. Under the new owners the
Bristol Ferryboat Company grew
to offer river trips, wine-tasting
cruises, pirate parties and hen dos
in addition to the valuable daily ferry
service for commuters. At the same
time, initiatives such as the Bristol
Harbour Festival had succeeded in
reviving the fortunes of the Floating
Harbour, once a derelict backwater
threatened with being filled in.
So it came as a great surprise when
the Bristol Ferryboat Company
went into liquidation in December
2012. Horrified at the thought of
losing an important and much-
loved part of Bristol’s recent
history, a consortium of investors
bought the five ferries from the
administrators with the aim of
running the Bristol Ferry Boats as
a Community Benefit Society (CBS).
Less than six months later, they
launched a share offer aiming to
raise £250,000 to bring the ferries
into community ownership with
support and publicity from the
Co-operative Enterprise Hub.
With shares starting at just £100
the hope was that as many people
as possible would be able to own
part of an enterprise that has
been, as one of the founding
members, Mark Tucker put it:
‘Part of the Bristol dock scene
for many decades.’ By the end
of July, 870 people had invested
over £340,000 ensuring that Bristol
Ferry Boats can continue to provide
a great service for the community.
What’s more, Ian Bungard is back at
the helm of Bristol Ferry Boats, and
back in the heart of the community
that he served for so long. As he
says: ‘This is only the start but we
are delighted to be back out there
on the water...it feels like we have
come home.’
www.co-operative.coop/
enterprisehub
Bristol Ferry
Enterprise
Photo©PaulBullivant
04
6059

Food
Avillage shop has been a fixture of the
small Norfolk community of Itteringham
since 1623, but when the last owner died in 1994,
it looked like the end of almost 350 years of
trading. Refusing to accept the loss of such
a valuable asset, the village stepped in and
almost twenty years later, the shop is still
serving its community.
Once the community had raised £5,000 to keep
the shop open, they founded a Community
Shop Association to manage it. Then in 2003
they obtained a grant for refurbishment from
Vital Villages. Today Itteringham Community
Shop has a turnover of around £100,000 a year
which allows it to break even. The shop is run by
volunteers – between 25 and 50 of the village’s
120 or so inhabitants lend a hand in various
capacities throughout the week, including the
most important – being paying customers.
Volunteering saves the business about 20% of
its running costs. Rather than rely on the local
cash and carry, Itteringham Village Shop put local
sourcing at the heart of its business from the
beginning, rooting the shop in not just the
local community but in the local economy.
Local sourcing wasn’t as fashionable in 1994 as
it is now, but it seemed like common sense then
and it still does. The local supply chain ensures
that the shop serves the whole community.
The community is understandably proud
of the shop and produced a book about its
history which also provides another income
stream. But they’re far from shackled by tradition
and recognise that community enterprises have
to adapt and diversify to survive. Already home
to the post office, the shop now contains what
the staff describe as the smallest café in Norfolk
and also runs a pop-up cinema in addition
to the shop. It’s this approach that won the
shop the Plunkett Foundation’s award for
Retail Innovation in 2013. But perhaps the biggest
service the shop offers its customers is a regular
supply of Chocolate Tiffin. The locals put away
9kg week of the stuff. Now that really is how
to meet a community’s needs.
www.ourvillagestore.co.uk
Itteringham Village Shop
Enterprise
The Bristol Pound was launched in 2012
following examples of local currency projects
in Totnes, Stroud and Brixton. It is run as a
partnership between the Bristol Pound Community
Interest Company and the Bristol Credit Union with
the backing of the Financial Conduct Authority.
It is the UK’s first city-wide local currency.
Like other local currency projects, Bristol Pounds,
which were designed by members of the
community, can be spent at participating local
shops and businesses, helping to support
independent businesses through commitments
to spend locally. It’s not just a paper currency
though; people can pay in Bristol Pounds via the
internet and by mobile phone using a specially
designed SMS payment system.
Ambitious from the start, the project has gone
from strength to strength, launching new
elements and securing new deals for members
along the way. Now Bristol Pounds can be used
to pay business rates and council tax, bus and
train companies accept it, and one energy
company has agreed to accept them for bill
payments. Council staff can take all of part of their
salary in Bristol Pounds; the city’s independent
mayor George Ferguson is paid in Bristol Pounds
and a local firm of architects has agreed to be paid
in Bristol Pounds for all current and future work
commissioned by the council.
There are a range of spin-off projects like the
Real Economy Network – neighbourhood food
buying groups bringing members together
to source affordable local food direct from
producers, and Bristol Prospects – a mutual
credit network for small and medium sized
businesses. The aim is to see how far the
currency can root itself, change behaviour
and build a different kind of local economy.
www.bristolpound.org
Bristol Pound
Photo © Itteringham Community Shop
Photo © Mark Simmons
04
6261

The Eden Project guide to extraordinary communities

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