“My livelihood is mainly around delivering development support to co-operatives and community businesses, so that's businesses that are owned by and accountable to the people they trade with; that trade with them either as workers, tenants, customers, even investors sometimes, or businesses that are owned by their community like community owned pubs, community shops, community owned bookshops, etc. And I do that all over the UK and even a little bit into Ireland as well. But actually the thing that really interests me is developing co-operatives that enable people to take control of their livelihoods.”
It’s sort of a secret - there is a way that we can come together and meet your mutual social & economic needs
Can you briefly summarise your role in the community of Calderdale?
“My livelihood is mainly around delivering development support to co-operatives and community businesses, so that's businesses that are owned by and accountable to the people they trade with; that trade with them either as workers, tenants, customers, even investors sometimes, or businesses that are owned by their community like community owned pubs, community shops, community owned bookshops, etc. And I do that all over the UK and even a little bit into Ireland as well. But actually the thing that really interests me is developing co-operatives that enable people to take control of their livelihoods. ”
What does inclusivity and diversity mean in relation to your work in Calderdale?
“Although I work with co-operatives, which are traditionally grassroots responses to the economic needs of communities, there is culture within that tends to be white middle class hippies that set them up, rather than communities that are at the lower end of the various scales of deprivation; or communities with large BME communities. I mean, there are some exceptions to that. So, for instance, the UK Credit Union movement was largely started by the Afro Caribbean community who bought that tradition with them.
The challenge for me and the co-operative development sector, and the co-operative movement in general really, is the de-colonising of that; to get away from that thing that it's what middle class hippies do. Because it's sort of like a secret really; that there is a way that you can come together to meet your mutual social and economic needs.”
“Oh Co-Op’s that’s what hippies do!”
What do you think the key problems are that we face in meeting people's differences and including marginalised people in Calderdale?
“I think it's partly cultural. And that might even just be cultural within the valley. So as I said before, if you think of Calderdale as this as this frying pan, where you've got the Halifax at the bottom and then the sort of radical hippie uplands up here on the handle: Calderdale has actually a very high density of co-operatives. We've got over 30 co-operatives in the valley. So those are independent autonomous businesses. But nearly all of them are up at this top end of the valley on the handle. And that's something that really needs to change. And partly that is cultural again: "Oh co-ops! That's what hippies do!" And also, you basically tend to get more stuff where stuff is already happening. It's accessing, what I saw in a post referred to yesterday as “capital light” parts of the community, or the BME community.
So that's a challenge, but also where you need capital to start stuff up, if people haven't got any capital, where do we find that? And also, people who haven't got any capital are very risk averse as well, despite the facet that there is plenty of money out there to do this stuff. Borrowing £100,000, which no one's ever going to ever ask you for back if it all goes wrong, is still quite a hurdle to get over.”
Well, this is the thing that keeps coming up - about that cultural divide in the valley. How do we engage and how do we create awareness with such a divide?
“So there's a co-op called 'Bread and Roses' in Bradford running a shared workspace, right in the centre of Bradford and engaging right across the communities. and also there's a really inspiring project called 'Brick Box', which is an Community Interest Company that is arts based, which includes people from Bradford who basically went down to London did loads of amazing stuff, but then got priced out of London really. Their work was particularly around taking on buildings and turning them into vibrant community spaces. So they thought 'actually, let's go back to Bradford where there's loads of empty property, and just started doing stuff: holding massive street parties, they've taken over and run a pub in the middle of Bradford. You go in there and, you know, they're really vibrant, cross cultural, quite radical spaces.”
It's all around getting community businesses to fill the vacuum that's left by the state withdrawing from civil society really
So how has COVID and lockdown changed things in the region?
“The COVID response has been really interesting because we've had all these mutual aid networks setting up, some of which are now sort of saying, "well, actually, this is not just for COVID. What can we do to extend this?" I mean, some of them were existing organisations that switched into COVID mode.
So for instance a great group I'm working within in Hull that are looking at how can we actually recreate our economy, a bit similar to what we had with the 'Calderdale Bootstrap' and over in Kirklees with the 'Kirklees Solidarity Economy Network', who have really got involved in that mutual aid network, supporting the vulnerable within the community through the lockdown, at the same time as setting up a new care co-op in Kirklees. That is definitely grassroots working class stuff going on there. And this did happen in the 19th century. It was the people who had a little bit of spare cash and a little bit more time, and who were very political. So the early co-operatives were set up by Chartists.
As co-operation moves South it really got his foothold here. In 1844 they first set up the co-op shop in Toad Lane (Rochdale). Within four years we had a co-operative society here in Hebden bridge. But then as it moved further down south, it was the slightly wealthy working class emerging particularly through the railway. So railway workers were a little bit better off. They were often key in setting up their co-operative retail societies within their community. And it grew to over 1600 co-operative retail societies.”
So, basically every significant community would be looking to have a co-operative retail society. And when you go to places like Oldham and walk around as you look up all of those amazing buildings in Oldham, and in Hebden Bridge, were built by the co-op. Yeah, a lot of our civic society was created by the co-op, which then became more municipal and local authorities and things like that. You know, again, a bit of a forgotten history really.
In the Covid crisis, people have been funding local projects, you know, the 'Trade's Club' just pulled in lots of money and people really want to support it. It's an amazing facility. It also makes me wonder if there should be some level of responsibility on a place that's affluent, like Hebden Bridge, to support the wider community. But it's all around getting community businesses to fill the vacuum that's left by the state withdrawing from civil society really. One is that they don't really have the capacity to do that. And two, there's still a whole load of that sector really addicted to what we had before, which was 'we're nice and doing a nice thing, give us some grant money'. So they're still very much grant focused. But it does mean if you're a worker co-op setting up, in order to take control of your livelihood, you don't fit that definition of the thing that needs investment, and you're not even seen as being a community business, even though you're owned and run by people within the community who are trying to take control of their livelihoods. That's something I'm particularly keen to address.”
Rather than it being fluffy, retired colonels buying their pub type community business, it's actually real people creating real jobs within their community that they own and control.
What are your main ideas for impacting diversity, inclusivity in Calderdale?
“So one thing that I'm particularly interested in (I've got quite a few irons in the fire), one is I want to try and find a more sustainable method for funding co-operative development and purely co-operative development. So rather than it being this more sort of like, fluffy, retired colonels buying their pub type community business, it's actually real people creating real jobs within their community that they own and control.
The other thing is building on local solidarity economic work that's going on. The surge of work was coming out with people like 'The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES)'. CLES are working with the new co-operative Council Innovation Network where they're really looking at strong, place-based, local economic development. And Preston is often held up as a co-operative example, we've got Plymouth as well. It's actually trying to carve out a bit of time within my work to bring that back into Calderdale and sort of jumpstart Bootstrap' or equivalent and start doing something like that as part of the Network, with the groups in Hull, Kirklees and Preston.”
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