A session at last weekend Co-op Congress, chaired by Co-operatives UK CEO Rose Marley, looked at how communities can shape high streets and other under-pressure places. This comes, Marley noted, at a time when austerity has led to a loss of expertise on co-ops in local government.
High profile projects include Dewsbury Arcade, a grade II listed Victorian shopping arcade which is reopening as the UK’s first community-owned shopping centre. This followed the closure of the arcade and subsequent purchase by Kirklees Council in 2020
Funding has been a battle, said co-founder Chris Hill, with a £3m budget rising to £10m, and the local election results, with Kirklees falling under no overall control, Labour’s representation crashing to zero seats and Reform the biggest party, creates more uncertainty.
But, he said, Dewsbury, like many smallish towns, has seen retail go “down the tube” and something needs to be done to rescue the retail picture.
Rising costs have also caused existential problems for the Stirchley Co-operative Development, as reported in Co-op News. Co-founder Sean Farmelo said the co-op is now working with Birmingham City Council and exploring options for a way forward.
Related: Stirchley Co-op Development project under threat
Lenny Watson, co-founder of co-op music venue Sister Midnight, said local authority support had been important, with help securing a 10-year lease on local working men’s club in return for paying to restore it. With money raised from grants and community shares, the co-op is set to open in September.
She said she could relate to the complaint of councils lacking knowledge of the sector, as commercial negotiators at the local authority “just didn’t understand the concept of community use”.
Alice Hemming, a development worker at Co-operative Futures, said it is vital to have co-op involvement in the Pride in Place programme through neighbourhoods boards. She wondered if the boards could themselves become co-ops themselves, or if it would be enough to just bring in more democratic decision making.
More broadly, she added: “One thing we could do more of is education for officers and councillors”, especially with regard to right to buy and assets of community value. “A lack of understanding around that has stymied opportunities for community ownership,” she warned.
Related: Lewisham arts co-op looks to create a grassroots music venue
Meanwhile, a key asset is people, the panel agreed – but this needs to be backed by funding.
Watson said the Sister Midnight team were “overwhelmed with how willing the community were to put in money, time, skills, expertise. There is a long legacy of community organising and activism in Lewisham.”
At Dewsbury, said Hill, there was the realisation that the future of town centres requires a shift from retail to social activity. After securing funding to run events at the arcade, thosands of people turned up, and “we got a bit of buy-in that things were happening”.
Hemming said that in her years as a co-op development worker, one thing that sustained long-surviving organisations through difficult times is their membership.
But to make it sustainable, resources are needed to pay people, she warned, to “fend off burnout”. And local authorities need to be less obstructive and create a more enabling environment, she added, with stronger democratic processes for how money is used and managed.
Farmelo said the Stirchley project had involved a huge amount of volunteer work – more than 10,000 hours. He warned that the government’s commitment to community-led housing and high streets isn’t backed by investment at a time when the sector needs core funding. One option, he suggested, is a co-op development business, along the lines of the Catalonian entity that backed award-winning Sostre Civic housing co-op.
