Successful Community Enterprises

Throughout the country there are a variety of successful community enterprises. Listed below are a diverse sample of the current developments across the United Kingdom.

Regional

South East
Community Cafe - The Sunlight Trust, Gillingham, Kent
Sunlight Development Trust is a community owned and managed charitable organisation that works with partners across all sectors. They combine a mix of services aimed at everybody within their community; nobody is excluded. Their overriding aim is to improve health, inequity and wellbeing by providing an improved range of social, medical and community activities.

London
Riverside Community Development Trust. London
RCDT has developed Newburn Street as a community resource. This is used to generate an income to support the work of RCDT in the community, and to provide long-term community facilities.

East of England
Keystone Development Trust, Thetford
The biggest development trust in the Eastern Region and one of the largest development trusts in England. As a development trust Keystone delivers a diverse range of projects and services responsive to the needs of the local community . Keystone is able to deliver projects by generating income from its own not for private profit social enterprises as well as through public and other funds.

South West
Market and Coastal Towns Association. Devon
The market and Coastal Towns Association is a new and independent organisation which supports the development of vibrant, healthy and sustainable market and costal buildings and land developments.

West Midlands
Fordhall Community Land Initiative. Shropshire
The Fordhall Community Land Initiative is an industrial and Procident Society with charitable status. It is currently owned by over 8000 shareholders from across the UK and indeed the world. This society owns all of Fordhall Farm.

East Midlands
Lincolnshire Land for people
New homes, community space and the reinstatement of former allotments are part of proposals being considered by English Partnerships and the national regeneration agency.

National

Scotland
Ekopia Resource Exchange Ltd
Ekopia helps run community shops and post offices currently they operate a whole food outlet and have helped fund a number of community regeneration projects in Glasgow.

Wales

Spirit of the Miners was a community regeneration project that set out to create an identity for northern Ceredigion using the legacy of metal mining as a theme for regeneration. The project mainly focused on the human, social and community aspects of mining culture. In short, the very reason why many of the upland villages exist.

Across the United Kingdom

New Deal for Communities
This is a Government initiative to tackle the problems of deprived areas, established in 1998. It addresses poverty and social exclusion through improving job prospects, reducing crime, improving educational achievement and reducing poor health. The emphasis is on self-help and New Deal Communities determine their own spending. Partnerships have been established in 39 neighbourhoods across England, and over the ten-year duration of the programme, they will receive a total of £1.9 billion. A key Government objective for the programme is to ensure the active participation of

BLF Community Assets programme
The £30 million Community Assets programme, funded by the Office of the Third Sector and delivered by the Big Lottery Fund, enables third sector organisations to have greater control over the assets they use, such as community buildings. It will facilitate the transfer of assets from local authorities to third sector organisations for their use as community resources. The programme offers grants of between £150,000 and £1 million for refurbishment of local authority buildings, including community centres and other multi-purpose facilities, so they can benefit both local communities and the third sector organisations that take them on. Community Assets aims to bring about the following outcomes: Local third sector organisations have greater security and independence, and are better able to meet the needs of the communities they serve. l Communities have more access to better facilities that respond to their needs.

Land for People
http://www.landforpeople.co.uk/
Land for People is a not-for-profit company with charitable objects. They work with communities in Wales and the Marches, with an emphasis on building affordable homes for local people, on land held in trust. Their objectives are to enable communities to build affordable housing, promote active citizenship through regeneration and development of their community.