Once a derelict pub, repurposed by residents into a thriving youth centre, community hub and library
All Community ownership
In 2018, Power to Change joined forces with Bristol and Bath Regional Capital, Big Society Capital, and Bristol City Council to create and co-fund a first-of-its-kind blended fund for Bristol.
Empowering Places was a unique five-year programme designed by Power to Change to explore ways in which ‘locally rooted’ anchor organisations, operating in areas of high deprivation, could be supported to ‘catalyse’ new community businesses. The programme hypothesised that this, in turn, would contribute to an overarching vision of more prosperous places, with more jobs and opportunities for local people.
In 2019, we teamed up with Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and local social economy leaders to form Kindred, an independent CIC providing repayable, interest-free money to STOs.
Founded in the 1970s, radical co-operative bookshop, October Books in Southampton has expanded its reach to a new generation of young members and leaders.
Founded by a group of young radicals in Hull in the 1980s, Giroscope’s self-help housing is regenerating the neighbourhood with a new generation of young people.
Accessible, affordable, and inclusive, Bristol Co-operative Gym is founded by millennials, run by its members, and designed to strengthen everyone in the community.
The young women on a mission to establish Lewisham’s first community owned live music venue.
Breathing new life into an old market town.
Restoring a Victorian grade II listed ballroom for community use.
The Anglers Rest was saved from closure in 2011, when 300 people from the rural Bamford community pooled their money to buy it. Now, it’s an invaluable hub that offers vital amenities and services.
Villagers in rural West Berkshire raised funds through donations, grants and a community share offer to open a community shop.
An old train station connecting communities once again
A seaside hub bringing great ideas to life
A historic building turned cultural facility drawing visitors to the high street.
Improving health and regenerating a former mining community.
Saving the local high street and supporting local people.
A Turner Prize-winning housing and regeneration project in Liverpool.
Homebaked Community Land Trust is building affordable housing, brick by brick.
A community nursery and garden centre training vulnerable young people.
Local library opened by Mark Twain reopened in community hands
A vibrant and enterprising community pub for villagers with a café, shop, playground and a range of community activities
A railway refurbishment over 40 years in the making.
Supporting local young people to become independent.
A community hub serving one the most diverse communities in England
Neglected bombsite becomes inclusive community farm.
Nurturing the neighbourhood, loaf by loaf.
Restoring a Victorian railway pier for community use.
A community digital media centre giving a platform to Sheffield voices.
Putting the heart back into a divided community.
Investing in community-owned solar panels to tackle energy poverty.
Cuckmere Buses: transporting the local community with its fleet of eight minibuses.
Transforming a grade II listed school house into a community hub for a commuter town.
Having successfully established a community football club for young people on disused parkland, Huyton Juniors then turned its attention to regenerating the space into a permanent community asset.
In 2014, Wellingborough Council decided it couldn’t afford to keep a day centre for the elderly open so residents, left reeling by its closure, stepped up and took it on.
A new hub in South Norwood will bring together a diverse and vibrant neighbourhood where inequality and a lack of cohesion is threatening to splinter the community.
Once a school caretaker’s bungalow, Hale Community Centre now takes care of a whole community often overlooked in an otherwise prosperous town.
Like many other organisations, the team from Queen’s Mill in Castleford has been wrestling with the question of how to reach the whole of the community.
Myatt’s Fields Park in south London is one of the smallest parks in the city. But you wouldn't know it from the diversity of activity taking place.
Fordhall Farm has found the last year easier than some other community businesses. Its activities are outdoor, and many have been less affected by lockdown. As a result, people have flocked to enjoy what it has to offer.
When FC United set up as a supporter-owned football club, they weren’t to know how rewarding their role in the community would come to be.
When a mother’s 13-year-old son was turned away by local football clubs, she decided to take matters into her own hands and set one up herself.
When traditional regeneration initiatives failed to deliver, residents decided to nudge their main street back to life, one building at a time.
Providing affordable workspace, enterprise support and training.
Sowing & growing in one of London’s most deprived neighbourhoods
London’s last working windmill, now its newest education and community space
Bringing solar farms into community ownership and ploughing a proportion of profits into local community projects
A social hub designed to meet the needs of a growing population
A sustainable balanced community that is welcoming and neighbourly.
A Grade I listed church that has been brought back to life with a new cultural centre and café extension
A community hub pioneering social prescribing in Gateshead
Transforming a Grade II listed Victorian factory into a community meeting and conference hub
A community bookshop preserving access to literature for everyone
Stocksbridge Leisure Centre, closed by the council in 2013, is now running at a surplus by and for the community.
A people powered revolution for genuinely affordable homes in Leeds.
Self-building a community cinema, music and arts hub in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Northumberland Seafood is a community lobster hatchery and seafood centre sustaining fishing heritage and trade in Amble, Northumberland.
Beating the traffic with a 365 day community boat service.
The Bookery: fostering community pride and opportunities through reading and literacy.
Building opportunities for young people and housing for vulnerable adults.
Upgrading the first community-owned health and wellbeing centre in Leeds.
Providing therapeutic services and cultivating wellbeing in Wigan