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Traditional economic development practice and developer-led regeneration are failing to address the economic challenges of our time. Community wealth building is a new people-centred approach to local economic development, which redirects wealth back into the local economy, and places control and benefits into the hands of local people.

Since 1986, CLES has been working with people across the UK and internationally, who can imagine a better way of organising our local economies, and making it a reality.

In 2007, we started developing a new approach to economic development in the UK - community wealth building. This approach is rooted in the European Social Democratic tradition, in which the state works to protect public values and achieve good outcomes for citizens. It has also drawn inspiration from community wealth building pioneered by the Democracy Collaborative work in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Mondragon cooperatives of the Basque Country.

Community wealth building is a response to the contemporary challenges of austerity, financialisation and automation. It seeks to provide resilience where there is risk and local economic security where there is precarity.

Collaborating with progressive places, such as Manchester and Preston, we have developed tried and tested strategies based on five key principles:

Plural ownership of the economy

Making financial power work for local places

Fair employment and just labour markets

Progressive procurement of goods and services

Socially productive use of land and property

CLES is at the forefront of community wealth building, working together with people across the globe.

Find out more

>> Return to the Community Wealth Building Centre of Excellence home page.

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Since 1986, CLES has been working with people across the UK and internationally, who can imagine a better way of organising our local economies, and making it a reality. In 2007, we started developing a new approach to economic development in the UK - community wealth building.

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How Community Wealth Building can address poverty via the Green New Deal 

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How Community Wealth Building can address poverty via the Green New Deal 

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Last month we announced the launch of Common Wealth's Green New Deal project, a series of reports that will aim to serve as a 'comprehensive road map for a Green New Deal for the UK'. Common Wealth have recently published Community Wealth Building for Economic and Environmental Justice , alongside other reports looking at the role devolution can play in achieving a Green New Deal.

Authors Grace Brown, Jonty Leibowitz and Neil McInroy of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies argue that with an effective Community Wealth Building (CWB) policy, a Green New Deal has the potential to 'empower the towns and villages of the UK, offering economic autonomy and stability for local communities'. They set out a plan for local Green New Deals, arguing that

'too much faith has been placed in the capacity of the central state to achieve systemic transformation, thus ignoring the crucial role the local can play in ushering in a transformation which is democratic and decentralised in its character.'

The report states that harnessing the CWB 'anchor institution approach' is key to delivering a Green New Deal; anchors have been 'instrumental in harnessing community wealth, so too must they play a leading role in ensuring a green transition.' The focus is on five areas:

Plural ownership of the economy

Making financial power work for local places

Fair employment and just labour markets

Progressive procurement of goods and services

Socially productive use of land and property

Plural ownership of the economy 'will be vital in ensuring the development and success of green alternatives', while regional banking 'should be charged with enabling local economic development and financing the energy transition'. The report argues that local industrial strategies focusing on creating 'a new green workforce' could create millions of new jobs as well as revitalising 'rural and ex-industrial local economies currently being failed by growth models based on extractive fossil capitalism'. It also calls for anchor institutions to 'move as rapidly as possible towards zero-carbon procurement' alongside creating dense local supply chains. Finally, the report states that 'local land and property represent an asset base from which community wealth can be accrued ... the environmental stewardship of the commons for future generations must be a key feature of a green Community Wealth Building movement.'

Read the full report here.

Read an introduction to the project, Road Map to a Green New Deal: From Extraction to Stewardship, written by Common Wealth director and founder Mathew Lawrence.

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How Community Wealth Building can help the Green New Deal | Rethinking Poverty

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Last month we announced the launch of Common Wealth's Green New Deal project, a series of reports that will aim to serve as a 'comprehensive road map for a Green New Deal for the UK'. Common Wealth have recently published Community Wealth Building for Economic and Environmental Justice, alongside other reports looking at the role devolution can play in achieving a Green New Deal.

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Home - Labour's Community Wealth Building Unit

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With Tory austerity blighting our communities and forcing councils to cut and privatise many local services, there is an urgent need for Labour councils to come together to develop and share ways to bring services back in house, stimulate local economies to provide decent jobs, and strengthen local democracy.

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A labour council takes control via CWB

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A case study from our Future of Government series This case study is part of a series aiming to review alternative management and governance practices, with a view to exploring different ways in which governments could better meet citizens' needs.

For many years until recently, Preston had consistently failed to deliver its full economic potential: it attracted very little inward investment between 2004 and 2008, and had suffered since 2008 as a result of the financial crisis and subsequent austerity measures. In 2013, Preston City Council and the Centre for Local Economic Strategies sought to reverse this trend. They started to reform the city's public procurement processes by "harnessing the potential of anchor institutions" via community wealth building. In 2016, they managed to invest GBP4 million to benefit their community directly, and the "Preston Model" has since become an economic policy proposal for the Labour Party and a model for other small cities.

The challenge

Preston is a city of around 140,00 inhabitants in Central Lancashire in the UK.[ 1] With the 2008/2009 financial crisis and the subsequent steep austerity measures enforced out by the UK government, there has been a significant decline of wealth in the community. It has therefore faced a buildup of severe socioeconomic challenges.

In May 2009, the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NRDA) published a report entitled Economic Potential of Preston.[ 2] It pointed out that Central Lancashire had consistently failed to deliver its full economic potential during the previous decade. Regarding the region's failure to attract a significant share of Northwest FDI over recent years, NRDA Inward Investment Team Statistics indicate that the region had only a 3 percent share of inward investment projects between 2004 and 2008. Preston's VAT stock grew only by 6.1 percent between 2001 and 2008, less than half of the national UK rate.

While the employment rate in the public sector has increased by over 15.000 jobs in mainly administrative and secretarial roles, the gross-value-added (GVA) from those jobs has not kept pace. "Central Lancashire... has posted an employment increase of 19 percent, GVA has grown by 29 percent. By implication, if productivity growth ratio had kept pace with the regional average then GVA growth should have been 67 percent."[ 2] Earnings in Preston are also comparatively lower than in the nearby cities of Liverpool and Manchester, trailing the UK average wage earnings by 7 percent.

There were a number of indicators of decline in Preston's socioeconomic situation in the 2000s: population growth had begun to stagnate; retail floor space had increased by only 2 percent since between 1998 and 2009; "a significant amount [of housing] in east Preston remained of low price and low quality"; and 22 percent of children living in Preston were classified as living below the poverty line.

The initiative

Since 2011, Preston City Council has been working with the Mancunian thinktank, The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), to tackle the economic challenges faced by the city. In 2013, they entered into an official strategic partnership to reform the city's public procurement processes by "harnessing the potential of anchor institutions". Based on previous work conducted in Birmingham and Manchester, "anchor institutions" in this context were defined as local institutions or local enterprises, such as councils, universities and hospitals, which have deep roots in their local community. They have a specific mission, invested capital, close relationships with customers, employees or vendors in their local area, and they control significant economic, human, intellectual and institutional resources there.

For example, an anchor institution such as a hospital would choose to be supplied by a local dry-cleaning company instead of outsourcing the service to a supplier outside the region. The aim in Preston was to generate more local wealth through anchor institutions by encouraging them to transfer external spending into the local economy via "progressive" procurement processes. In Preston itself, the six anchor institutions that were engaged throughout the initiative were:

1. Preston City Council

2. Lancashire County Council

3. Lancashire Constabulary

4. University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN)

5. Preston's College, a further education institution

6. Community Gateway Association.

On paper, CLES modelled their reform on "community wealth building", a model previously developed in the American city of Cleveland, Ohio by The Democracy Collaborative. It is a collection of policy approaches and models that utilise specific policy strategies to make it more difficult for "local financial resources to leak out" of the local economy. They leverage procurement rules and investments from anchor institutions for "community benefiting purposes".[ 4]

In order to achieve these objectives, the community wealth building model aims to:

1. "Increase asset ownership

2. "Anchor jobs locally by broadening ownership over capital

3. "Help achieve key environmental goals (including decreasing carbon emissions)

4. "Expand the provision of public services by strengthening the municipal tax base

5. "Ensure local economic stability."[3][4]

Preston City Council adopted this approach and applied it to the needs of their city, calling it "the Preston Model". Whenever the local economy was unable to supply the goods and services needed by anchor institutions, CLES and the city council advocated for the creation of worker-owned cooperatives. These were meant to fill the gaps in the local economy, where the local economy was as yet unable to deliver the requested goods and services.[ 5]

The public impact

Within a few years of changing the local procurement processes in Preston, the city has become a model for how local economies in the UK can generate their own wealth. In times of austerity measures and budget cuts by local authorities of up to 56 percent, the Preston model has flourished. During the 2016 UK general election, Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party leader, praised it as a model town for economic development, and other Labour MPs began to endorse the model.[ 6]

The public impact of the community wealth building efforts in Preston was significant, with GBP4 million redirected to Preston from previously unsuccessful inward investment. In 2016, three years after the initiative started, public service spending in the local community had gone up by GBP74 million in Preston and by GBP200 million in the wider Lancashire area. "In 2012/13, out of GBP750 million spent on goods and services by six anchor institutions, 5 percent was spent in Preston and 39 percent in Lancashire as a whole. By 2016/17, out of GBP620 million spent on goods and services by the same anchor institutions, 19 percent was spent in Preston and 81 percent in Lancashire as a whole."[ 6] This means that, even though funding from the central government to local councils has decreased, local spending has increased.

Apart from the increase in local procurement spending, the community wealth building efforts of the Preston model has had additional public impact because it created a sense of community and belonging for the people of Preston.[ 5] "If there are opportunities for making a success of life in Preston, a place where people have a sense of identity and belonging, then social capital is potentially increased, pride of place is enhanced, a sense of citizenship is developed, and democracy becomes relevant and vital."[ 6]
Written by Lisa Schaefer

The Public Impact Fundamentals - A framework for successful policy

All of our case studies have been assessed using the Public Impact Fundamentals: a simple framework and practical tool to help you assess your public policies and ensure the three fundamentals - Legitimacy, Policy and Action - are embedded in them.

Explore the impact achieved in this case study by clicking on any of the nine components in the Fundamentals Map above.

Learn more about the Fundamentals and how you can use them to access your own policies and initiatives.

Explore the fundamentals Close

What did and didn't work

All cases in our Public Impact Observatory have been evaluated for performance against the elements of our Public Impact Fundamentals.

Legitimacy

Public Confidence Good

While there is no direct public opinion survey on community wealth building in Preston, public confidence in the working conditions and "liveability" of the city seem to have increased.

However, in 2016 Preston was ranked as the best city in north-west England to live and work in, beating both Manchester and Liverpool. "The city ranked 19th overall in the 2016 Good Growth for Cities index, which measures the performance of 42 UK cities against 10 categories including jobs, income, work-life balance, transport, skills, environment and the house price to earnings ratio."[ 18] Moreover, the impact of public procurement flowing back into the local economy in Preston assisted local owners of small businesses. For example, "Conlon Construction, a family-run company, has hired five local staff and three graduate apprentices since it was awarded public sector contracts, including one to build a new covered market hall. Local farmers profited when the council divided up its GBP1.6m food budget for canteen sandwich fillings, yoghurts and fruit and simplified the tender process. A local artist collective called the Birley was given an ex-council building as studio space, saving it from moving to Manchester or Liverpool."[ 10] Taken together, these trends suggest an increase in public confidence on living and working in Preston.

Stakeholder Engagement Good

The main internal stakeholders are the six anchor institutions based in Preston or the county of Lancashire: Preston City Council, Lancashire County Council, Lancashire Constabulary, UCLAN, Preston's College, and the Community Gateway Association (see also The Initiative above). CLES raised awareness of community wealth building with these institutions, and actively involved them in discussing the new public procurement approach in various meetings, events and analyses.

The first step in engaging potential anchor institutions was to set up face-to-face meetings with lead politicians to introduce the principles of community wealth building at senior levels of their organisations. The institution had to be willing to make changes in their procurement behaviour, share their data on procurement spending, and grant CLES access to their procurement officers. Once they had agreed to this, they were identified as an official anchor institution, and CLES analysed their procurement spending and its spending impact on the local economy.

Political Commitment Strong

A mix of strong support from the opposition Labour Party leadership, as well as the individual leadership of Councillor Matthew Brown, was a big driving force behind the success of the Preston Model. While there was no particular support from the Conservative government, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition, declared it a "model town" of the economic policies he is advocating - known as "Corbynomics" - and the local leadership of the city of Preston also fully backed this model.[ 12]

Policy

Clear Objectives Strong

The overall goal of the Preston community wealth building model was to stop internal spending from flowing out of the local economy by changing the procurement behaviour of anchor institutions. To achieve this, the six anchor institutions (see also The Initiative above) agreed to the following vision: "A long term collaborative commitment to community wealth building in Lancashire for influenceable spend"[ 23].The vision has the following objectives:

1. "To simplify the process of procurement, in order to encourage a diversity of organisations to bid for opportunities;

2. To actively reduce levels of spend leaking out of the Preston and Lancashire economies, with consideration given on an anchor to anchor basis as to the scale of this reduction;

3. To understand the Preston and wider Lancashire business base in more detail, and collectively encourage businesses and social enterprises to bid for opportunities;

4. To develop the capacity of Preston and Lancashire based businesses to bid for opportunities;

5. To collectively raise awareness of procurement opportunities amongst Preston and Lancashire based businesses;

6. To identify services where there is potential for cooperative models of delivery".[23]

Evidence Strong

CLES based the community wealth building efforts in Preston on a mixture of their own experience from similar projects in Manchester and elsewhere and on the experience of The Democracy Collaborative, which had first employed the model in Cleveland.

The concept of community wealth building is considered to have started with the Mondragon Cooperation in the Basque country, where a federation of worker cooperatives was set up in 1956. It was further developed by the American scholar Ted Howard in the late 2000s, and was applied in practice in Cleveland by The Democracy Collaborative. Worker-owned cooperative laundry services and an energy company were set up to supply the local hospitals. They managed to become profitable, and these enterprises now employ over 150 people. "The plan is to increase the number of employees to at least 1,000."[ 7]

Council leader Peter Ranking and Councillor Matthew Brown were aware of the success of community wealth building in Cleveland and wanted to trial the model in Preston. They invited Ted Howard and The Democracy Collaborative to give a talk in Preston in 2012 to present their ideas, and both also attended an event on community wealth building in London, together with CLES.

Feasibility Strong

Based on their long-standing relationship, CLES and Preston City Council had well-established HR capabilities and a sound method of working together. Before their strategic partnership on community wealth building, CLES had already provided several research and training services to the council, including addressing the challenges involved in paying the minimum wage in Preston, while Matthew Brown became a fellow at the thinktank.[ 5]

There were no legal challenges to the initiative in Preston, as the city council and CLES fully complied with EU rules on public procurement. These laws aim to prevent favouritism and encourage non-discrimination among bidders from all over Europe when public bodies award procurement contracts, especially those above GBP180,000. This could have been a feasibility challenge for the community wealth building model, as the model favours bidders that have a positive impact on the local economy, not those that necessarily provide the most economic bid.

However, EU Law allows for discretion in interpreting the procurement process, but it could have led to a successful legal challenge if any large procurement contracts awarded by anchor institutions to local businesses were found to be discriminatory. To overcome this potential obstacle, Preston actively sought to define more concrete EU-wide rules and practices that worked within the EU legal system, to incorporate community wealth building and ensure long-term feasibility. "Preston has been working, through [the] Procure (URBACT) project over the past three years with the European Commission and ten other cities across Europe on how to develop best practice on procurement which works for local residents and local businesses as well as for those anchor institutions letting the contracts."[ 22]

Action

Management Strong

For this project, the CLES project team located itself in Preston rather than their usual headquarters in Manchester. Their management style was very inclusive, and they invited anchor institutions to events and meetings to raise awareness with them and help make procurement processes work for them, rather than impose regulations top down. They stated that the first events they facilitated "sought to create a common and agreed statement of intent across the institutions around how procurement spend could be maximised for the benefit of the local economy and residents".[ 5] Their step-by-step approach (see Clear Objectives above) meant that the management team was able to rebalance the project as a result of any new research findings, to include as many anchor institutions as were willing to participate, and to work out the exact needs of the local supply chains.

The model's critics have warned, however, that there is a balance to be struck between effective procurement rules and economic planning based on the location of prospective suppliers. In a free market economy, they argue, procurement should transcend party politics and be based on providing the best value goods and services. Yet the Preston Model favours businesses located in a specific area, reducing the incentive to innovate and provide the best goods and services from any supplier.

If the model were adopted by all UK councils, critics argued, net economic growth would decline. Therefore, "to some critics, [the Preston Model] sounds like a damaging form of town hall protectionism - the municipal equivalent of a siege economy".[ 21] Preston City Council has recognised these concerns, and has countered them by arguing that the model "would only be 'protectionist' if an institution offered a contract to an inferior local contractor to shield them from competition of better performing and more keenly priced competitors. That isn't the case here. Under a community wealth building approach, a local contractor will only be awarded a contract if they can show that they can credibly compete on price, performance and quality."[ 22]

Measurement Good

Progress on most of the objectives of Preston community building model (outlined in the Clear objectives section) was evaluated by CLES in a report that outlined the context, achievements and next steps, three years after the start of the collaboration with Preston City Council.[ 5] CLES published the statistics of their spending analysis on their website, and the results indicated that Preston's organisations were spending 18.2 percent of their investments in 2016, up from 5.2 percent in 2013. In addition, several newspaper reports, analyses and interviews helped promote the success of community wealth building in the city.[ 21]

Furthermore, CLES was also to contribute to community wealth building by enhancing the supply chain activities of anchor institutions. To this end, CLES developed a "measurement framework which sought to explore the impact of existing activities (supplier behaviour, Living Wage campaign, physical developments) and potential scope of other community wealth building activities and their possible impact (complementary currencies, pension funds, community land trusts)"[5]

Lastly, to contribute to the research already available and include key environmental goals, "CLES undertook survey and case study work with a sample of Preston-based businesses to understand the contribution they made to the local economy and [to] addressing social and environmental issues."[ 5]

Alignment Strong

There was a clear alignment of interests between CLES, Preston City Council, and the anchor institutions involved in the policy, because CLES made sure that all the participants supported and understood the aim of community wealth building. The initial face-to-face meetings between lead politicians and officers at the anchor institutions meant that the initiative began on a sound footing.[ 5]

Under CLES's management, everyone was involved in finding their own best practice for procurement, based on an in-depth analysis of each institution. Subsequently, these were discussed with the council and the procurement officer to align on a procurement spending pattern that benefited the local economy, while also making the procurement process more efficient.[ 5]

Bibliography
View bibliography

[1] Situated on the estuary of the River Ribble, Preston became the country's 50th city in 2002 to mark the Queen's Golden Jubilee Year, Lancashire Vital Signs
http://www.lancsvitalsigns.co.uk/Preston-r9.html
[2] Economic Potential of Preston, Northwest Development Agency, 2009, GVA Grimley
https://www.preston.gov.uk/GetAsset.aspx?id=fAA3ADEAMwAxAHwAfABUAHIAdQBlAHwAfAAwAHwA0
[3] Ted Howard, President and Co-Founder, Our Team, The Democracy Collaborative [accessed August 2018]
https://democracycollaborative.org/content/ted-howard
[4] Community Wealth Building - Fighting inequality with comprehensive and transformative solutions for community economic development, Our Work, The Democracy Collaborative [accessed 2018]
https://democracycollaborative.org/democracycollaborative/local-economies/Stronger%20local%20economies
[5] Community Wealth Building through Anchor Institutions, 2017, CLES
https://cles.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Community-Wealth-Building-through-Anchor-Institutions_01_02_17.pdf
[6] Local democracy with attitude: the Preston model and how it can reduce inequality, Julian Manley, 2017, LSE Blog
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/local-democracy-with-attitude-the-preston-model/
[7] The Preston model: UK takes lessons in recovery from rust-belt Cleveland, Hazel Sheffield, 2017, The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/apr/11/preston-cleveland-model-lessons-recovery-rust-belt
[8] The 'Preston Model' and the modern politics of municipal socialism, Thomas M. Hanna, Joe Guinan and Joe Bilsborough, The Democracy Collaborative [accessed August 2018]
https://www.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/preston-model-modern-politics-municipal-socialism/
[9] The Preston Model, CLES, [accessed August 2018]
https://cles.org.uk/the-preston-model/
[10] Interview - 'Poverty was entrenched in Preston. So we became more self-sufficient', Hazel Sheffield, 2017, The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/14/poverty-was-entrenched-in-preston-so-we-became-more-self-sufficient
[11] Labour in UK Adopts Community Wealth Building Strategy as Party Policy, Steve Dubb, 2018, NPQ
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2018/02/09/labour-uk-adopts-community-wealth-building-strategy-party-policy/
[12] Preston, Jeremy Corbyn's model town, David Parkins, 2017, The Economist
https://www.economist.com/britain/2017/10/19/preston-jeremy-corbyns-model-town
[13] Ed Miliband visits Preston to learn about economic model, Ed Walker, 2017, Blog Preston
https://www.blogpreston.co.uk/2017/10/ed-miliband-visits-preston-to-learn-about-economic-model/
[14] The Democracy Collaborative Joins Jeremy Corbyn's New Community Wealth Building Unit As Advisors, News & Updates, The Democracy Collaborative, [accessed August 2018]
https://democracycollaborative.org/content/democracy-collaborative-joins-jeremy-corbyns-new-community-wealth-building-unit-advisors
[15] Preston Tithebarn scheme abandoned after John Lewis withdraws, 2011, BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-15571764
[16] OFFICIAL: Preston has unhealthiest city centre in the UK, 2015, Lancashire Post https://www.lep.co.uk/news/business/official-preston-has-unhealthiest-city-centre-in-the-uk-1-7176039

[17] Britain's suicide capital revealed as number of cases TWICE the national average, David Ottewell, 2016, The Mirror
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/britains-suicide-capital-revealed-number-7345632
[18] Preston named best city to live and work in north-west England, Nazia Parveen and Rachael Bunyan, 2016, The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/nov/08/preston-named-best-city-live-work-north-west-england
[19]The power of procurement - Towards progressive procurement: the policy and practice of Manchester City Council, Matthew Jackson, 2010, CLES
http://www.cles.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/The-power-of-procurement.pdf
[20] Local Wealth Building in Birmingham & Beyond - A New Economic Mainstream, CLES, 2018
https://cles.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Local-Wealth-Building-in-Birmingham-and-Beyond_report_2018.pdf
[21] Buy local, hire local: Preston blossoms on Corbynomics, Tommy Stubbington, 2017, The Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/buy-local-hire-local-preston-blossoms-on-corbynomics-xkbtq0t90
[22] What is the Preston Model, Preston City Council [accessed August 2018]
https://www.preston.gov.uk/thecouncil/the-preston-model/preston-model/
[23] Creating a good local economy: the role of anchor institutions, CLES, 2015, https://cles.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Anchor-institutions.pdf
#FutureGovernment #FoGCaseStudy

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The Preston Model of Community Wealth Building in the UK - Centre for Public Impact (CPI)

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A case study from our Future of Government series This case study is part of a series aiming to review alternative management and governance practices, with a view to exploring different ways in which governments could better meet citizens' needs.

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Community Wealth Building and why it is important

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Community Wealth Building and why it is important

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More than a decade ago, my colleagues and I at The Democracy Collaborative began using a term for a new kind of economic development - Community Wealth Building. For years, the term was so uncommon that it almost invariably appeared within quotation marks when used.

Today, a Google search identifies 124,000 entries and is growing daily.

In Richmond, VA, the Mayor recently established the first City-government Office of Community Wealth Building. Community wealth initiatives have been launched in cities as different as Cleveland, OH, Washington, DC, Atlanta, GA and Amarillo, TX. Regional Federal Reserve Banks are hosting video webinars and meetings. Even the extractive fracking industry - yes, you read that right - is now working to co-opt the term to improve its image.
Why Now?
So let us pause for a moment to ask: What is community wealth building and why is it important?

My colleague Marjorie Kelly, author of Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution, writes that:
When families possess assets - valuable skills, social networks, a home, some savings, an ownership stake in a business - they enjoy greater resilience, and are better able to withstand occasional shocks like unemployment or illness. They can plan for their future, send a child to college, feel secure in retirement. A job may start or stop. It is assets, of various kinds, that yield greater stability and security. As this is true of families, it is also true of communities. Jobs may be drawn into a community, but then leave without warning. And if attracting jobs means degrading community assets - through pollution, low-wage jobs, or the loss of tax income through excessive tax breaks - a seeming gain can in fact represent a net loss. If traditional economic development tends to be about attracting industry to a community, building wealth is instead about using under-utilized local assets to make a community more vibrant. It's about developing assets in such a way that the wealth stays local. And the aim is helping families and communities control their own economic destiny. Strengthening Communities
This is community wealth building: a fast-growing economic development movement that strengthens our communities through broader democratic ownership and control of business and jobs. It builds on local talents, capacities and institutions, rebuilding capital to strengthen and create locally-owned family and community owned businesses that are anchored in place, that aren't moving.

The community wealth building field includes a broad range of models and innovations that have been steadily growing power over the past 30 years or more: cooperatives, employee-owned companies, social enterprise, land trusts, family businesses, community development financial institutions and banks, and more. One powerful team of local partners are anchor institutions, like hospitals and universities. They are often the largest economic drivers in their communities. Increasingly they see the synergy between restoring local health and wealth with their success.

These strategies reverse the focus on "chasing companies to relocate to my city." All too often this includes greater tax breaks and lower wages for companies that may well relocate again for a better offer in another community. Community wealth, on the other hand, is tied to place. The people who own and control the businesses live there.

These structures and models are part of a growing system that aims at improving the ability of communities and individuals to:

1. increase asset ownership;

2. create anchor jobs locally by broadening ownership over capital;

3. help achieve key environmental goals (including decreasing carbon emissions);

4. expand the provision of public services by strengthening the municipal tax base; and

5. ensure local economic stability.

Investing Locally
Significantly strengthening and growing local capital is critical.

Strategies include:

1. building new, and strengthening existing, community-based financial institutions;

2. preventing local financial resources from "leaking out" away;

3. leveraging the use of procurement and investment from existing local anchor institutions such as hospitals, universities, foundations, cultural institutions, and city government; and

4. finally, working aligned impact investors and financial institutions to grow affordable capital committed to building local wealth.

Veris and other advisors play a critical role in furthering community-based impact investing.

The overall economic impact of place-based, community wealth building strategies is evident. More than 10 million employees own all or part of 10,900 companies through employee stock ownership plans (ESOPS) - firms that employees finance and increasingly own through pension contributions. These ESOPs have generated equity benefits of $870 billion for their employee-owners. Cooperatives, according to a 2009 University of Wisconsin study, now operate 73,000 places of business throughout the United States, own $3 trillion in assets, employ 857,000 people, and generate over $500 billion in revenue for their member-owners. The new "go local/sustainable" business and food movement is exploding.

Political economist and historian Gar Alperovitz, a co-founder of The Democracy Collaborative, often asks audiences this question when he lectures: "If you don't like state socialism and you don't like corporate capitalism, what kind of system do you want?" Community wealth building begins to point to some of the essential elements of a more just, equitable and sustainable system.

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What is Community Wealth Building and Why is it so Important?

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More than a decade ago, my colleagues and I at The Democracy Collaborative began using a term for a new kind of economic development - Community Wealth Building. For years, the term was so uncommon that it almost invariably appeared within quotation marks when used.

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Build a future for our communities that's bottom up, not trickle down.

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In uncertain times, if anything's clear, it's that trickle-down economics is dead, and that people are hungry for something new. What if the alternative was bottom up? The Co-operative Party just launched a practical guide to community wealth building: a way of using co-operatives to create local economic growth by making the most of the people, talent, skills and ideas that already exist in every community.

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A newly reconstituted branch with an agenda of actions.

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The AGM will talk about our plans for the next year, elect officers and delegates to the EC, LCF, CLPs and Kent Party Council, and reflect on activities in 2018.

We will also hear from Anna Birley, Policy Officer at the Co-operative Party and Labour and Co-operative Councillor in Lambeth, who will be talking about Community Wealth Building, a place-based approach to economic regeneration which empowers local government and enables communities to create and retain wealth locally.

The AGM will be followed by a branch meeting which will look at organising Fairtrade campaigning during Fairtrade Fortnight.

If you cannot attend the AGM, but wish to ask a question, make a nomination or volunteer to help the branch in a role or with particular expertise, please let the officers know or email j.cameron@party.coop. Alternatively the meeting will take nominations on the night.

Only members will be able to vote in the AGM section of the meeting and to stand for office or as a representative, you must have been a Co-operative Party member for 6 months or more.

The venue is fully accessible, guide dogs accepted.

Parking available but if there are no spaces you can park in Sainsbury's car park. Bus to Wildish Road.

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Canterbury & Swale Branch Co-operative Party

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The AGM will talk about our plans for the next year, elect officers and delegates to the EC, LCF, CLPs and Kent Party Council, and reflect on activities in 2018.

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Using what we already have to generate local economic growth co-operatively

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We need to add any local policy documents and ideas here

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We need to add any local policy documents and ideas here

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Local Economy/Housing Policy Debate

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Canterbury Local Economy Response NPF 2019.docx

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Store photos and docs online. Access them from any PC, Mac or phone. Create and work together on Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents.

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Bristol's development plan linked to the UN sustainable development goals

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Store photos and docs online. Access them from any PC, Mac or phone. Create and work together on Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents.

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Store photos and docs online. Access them from any PC, Mac or phone. Create and work together on Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents.

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response to national policy documents

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Canterbury Local Economy Response NPF2019.docx

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Store photos and docs online. Access them from any PC, Mac or phone. Create and work together on Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents.

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Canterbury Beacon Discussion on Community Wealth Building                                                       

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Canterbury Beacon Discussion on Community Wealth Building                                                       

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.The aim was to begin a conversation and gather together a group to share ideas and then take action that would lead to the realisation of those ideas.

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Local delivery service via bikes from local shops

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Brighton delivery service SUS-200513-130615001 Copyright: Other 3rd Party

Click It Local has an ethos to enable local shops to be able to compete with the likes of Amazon on convenience and choice in a mission to save the local high street and help support the Brighton community.

And the service has already proved popular with local retailers as almost 20 Brighton businesses and independents have already signed up to the platform.

Click It Local founder Steven Koch says, "The past decade has been a tricky time for local shops, with many struggling to stay afloat due to competition from bigger online businesses. With the added, sudden challenge of Covid-19, many independent shops in Brighton have been badly hit.

I love shopping locally, so I wanted to find a way to offer the local high street virtually to its community in one place online, as well as help small shops offer the same level of speed and convenience that today's online customers have come to expect."

The service has already proved popular since its launch in Cambridge earlier this month and will be expanding to Brighton, as well as London and Edinburgh later this summer.

The app will follow next month but customers can start ordering now.

Small businesses already on board include Brighton Pier beer, Bison beer, The Great British Charcuterie, Hi Cacti, Old Tree Brewery, She Said Boutique.

Steven runs a London-based digital retail agency headquartered in London, so he's familiar with how an eCommerce trading platform works. The service will operate in and around Brighton.

The cost is a flat rate of £3 if you order from one retailer, but you can order from multiple retailers on the site, and each extra retailer adds £1 to the cost of the delivery.

Steven is calling for local shops to sign up and for the Brighton community to support their local stores.

"Through Click It Local, communities are rediscovering their local high street and it's amazing to be able to recreate the individuality of Brighton through the virtual high street. Our aim is to ensure we can all continue to shop local, support independent shops and provide for the local community" Says Steven

To find out more and shop locally, visit www.clickitlocal.co.uk or follow @clickitlocal across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

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New delivery service starting next week will allow local Brighton shops to compete with Amazon

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Brighton delivery service SUS-200513-130615001 Copyright: Other 3rd Party Click It Local has an ethos to enable local shops to be able to compete with the likes of Amazon on convenience and choice in a mission to save the local high street and help support the Brighton community.