News Archive
10 Co-op Pubs in Top 50
The guide to the 50 Best UK Pubs, published in The Guardian on 27 October, devotes a whole section featuring 10 entries to community-owned pubs. This demonstrates how far the movement for community-ownership of pubs has come in a relatively short time. Ten years ago there were only four community-owned pubs in the UK. Now […]
Better access for award-winning pub
An award-winning community-owned pub in rural Oxfordshire is greatly improving the access and facilities for disabled customers with help from a loan arranged by Co-operative & Community Finance. The Abingdon Arms in Beckley won the 2018 Sawday’s Pub Guide award for Best Community Pub and is listed in the inews Top 50 Pubs for Sunday […]
Reach Fund extended for 3 years
The Foundation for Social Investment (Access) and Social Investment Business have announced that the Reach Fund, the pioneering grant programme which supports charities and social enterprises to take on social investment, will continue for at least a further three years. Co-operative & Community Finance is one of 24 organisations in England to be approved […]
Lending steady and customers happy
Lending has been steady in the first half of this year with strong lending to community pubs and creative/ media and publishing businesses. Our 2018 Half Year Review reports that we released 10 loans totalling £367,000 from the funds we manage in the first six months of this year, directly benefiting an estimated 1,500 people […]
We are first choice for loans to co-op pubs
As we reported in A Review of 2017, the More Than A Pub programme, funded by the government and Power to Change, has helped many communities take ownership and control of their local pubs. At the end of September there were 69 co‑operative pubs open for business in England and Wales and a further 236 […]
Building a new economy
Radical publishers Stir To Action have recently launched their New Economy programme, a year of workshops, residentials, mentoring, and live crowdfunding events. The programme will be delivered in Bristol, Oxford, and London from October 2018 to July 2019. Co-operative & Community Finance is one of the sponsors and its members and borrowers are being offered […]
Old Ship to rise from the ashes
The people of a picturesque but deprived village in Cornwall are preparing to rebuild and reopen a derelict pub that burnt down five years ago. The site of The Old Ship in Cawsand has been bought by a community benefit society with a little help from Co-operative & Community Finance, Plunkett Foundation, and the More […]
Radical bookshop buys former bank
A 40-year old radical bookshop co-operative named after the Russian Revolution is now the legal owner of a former bank building which it plans to turn into a community hub. On 6 August October Books in Southampton completed the purchase of 189 Portswood Road which for many years had been a branch of NatWest Bank. […]
New chair appointed
Jon Nott has been appointed to be chair of the ICOF Group and ICOF Community Capital. Jon takes over from Jo White who stepped down at the AGMs held on 26 June after seven years as chair. Jon was elected to the board in 2017 which makes him a relative newcomer but he has a […]
Farewell Jo, Welcome Dan
Long standing director and trustee Jo White stood down at the Annual General Meetings held on 26 June 2018. Jo had been on the board of the various companies and societies involved in the ICOF family of businesses for 15 years and she had been chair since 2011. She had combined this exacting voluntary position […]