Community Business Bright Ideas

Residents in North Liverpool had the bright idea to turn a disused launderette into a vibrant community hub, offering much more than clean clothes. Named after Kitty Wilkinson who helped her neighbours avoid a cholera epidemic by washing their clothes in 1832, the new community launderette will provide a vital service. But it’s also hoping to run events and creative activities in the space to increase social cohesion in the very diverse area. The Bright Ideas Fund has helped them register the business and secure the premises amongst other things.

The town of Bentley near Doncaster in Yorkshire is a classic ‘food desert’ – 94% of people live within walking distance of a fast food outlet and there is no independent greengrocer serving the town’s 21,000 strong population. Set up with the intention of promoting restorative and urban farming to create new opportunities for
economic regeneration in the area, Permafuture Agroecology accessed funding through the Bright Ideas Programme to become a co-operative business and to set up a veg box scheme. Profits from the veg they sell will be used to repair and maintain a disused horticultural training centre for the benefit of the local community.

Litherland REMYCA Football Club has been around for over 50 years but only recently decided to become community-owned. They turned into a co-operative, with a one member one vote model so local people can have a say in the running of the club. The Bright Ideas Fund has helped them improve their community engagement, marketing, business planning and impact measurement skills.

When part of St Ann’s Hospital in Haringey, North London was put up for sale to private housing developers, only 14% of those proposed new homes were classed as  “affordable”. In response, a group of Haringey resident and workers set up a community land trust, a membership organisation of 350 people who live, work or have strong connections to Haringey. It aims to build 500 genuinely affordable homes on the hospital site currently up for development and will work closely with City Hall who have now purchased the site. Through the Bright Ideas Fund, StART developed its business plan, revised its financial model, improved its accountability to the community and produced a brochure for investors.