News Archive

 Rural communities should have the Right to Try to take control of the issues important to them through community-ownership.  This was the message from Rural Communities - The Right to Try, a Plunkett Foundation conference held on 27th January in London.Peter Couchman, Chief Executive of the Plunkett FoundationPeter Couchman, Chief Executive Officer of the Plunkett Foundation said: “Rural communities want to take ownership of the issues affecting them but are often prevented from doing so because of barriers around a lack of rights and a lack of support.  We are exploring why and how these barriers must be removed, to...

The Government’s Food 2030 report needs to go a step further by engaging communities in food production and food security according to Making Local Food Work, a partnership of organisations which help communities to take ownership of their food and where it comes from.Peter Couchman, Chief Executive of the Plunkett Foundation which leads the Making Local Food Work partnership said; “While we welcome this as the first major food report in sixty years, we feel that the vision set out in the report does not reflect the change in the relationships that consumers increasingly want to have with the food...

In 2009 we celebrated 90 years of helping rural people to believe in what they can achieve together.This year we have:Helped rural communities to set up and run community-owned shopsAssisted rural communities to take control of vital rural servicesSupported people to take ownership of their food and where it comes fromReconnected producers and consumers through local foodThank you to everyone we have worked with during the year to make this possible.Plunkett Foundation Christmas E-Card (pdf 121KB)

Faced with declining or threatened local services, limited job opportunities, not enough affordable housing and looming public expenditure cuts, we need new ways to sustain the quality of life in rural communities. DATE: 27th January 2010LOCATION: Cavendish Conference Centre, London (map and directions)Delegate Booking Form (download Word doc)Exhibitor Booking Form (download Word doc)Latest NewsJim Paice MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Agriculture and Rural Affairs and Alun Michael MP, Vice President of the Local Government Association confirmed as keynote speakers.Jim Paice MP was appointed Opposition Spokesman on Agriculture and has remained on the front bench ever since. Following the 2001 General...

Rolande Anderson has been appointed Campbell Robb's successor as director general of the Office of the Third Sector. Anderson, who is director general of the Office for National Statistics, will take up the post on 21 December on a 12-month contract. Robb was on a three-year contract, but a spokesman for the OTS said Anderson was being loaned from the ONS for a year. He stressed, however, that her time at the OTS could extend beyond 2010. Anderson will combine her job at the OTS with the role of director general of the Social Exclusion Task Force, which is also...

 Ambridge, the village which the world’s longest running radio soap The Archers is based upon, has chosen community-ownership as the answer to saving the last shop in the community.  The Plunkett Foundation supports rural communities to set up and run community-owned shops.  It has worked with the show’s producers to highlight how real communities are combating village shop closures, by taking control of the very thing they are faced with losing.Currently in Ambridge, the only shop and post office is going to close. After serious consideration at a recent Parish Council meeting, villagers decided that the best way to keep...

The Community Transport Association (CTA) and the Plunkett Foundation have announced a new three year Social Enterprise Rural Community Transport Development Fund.  The new fund will offer grant/loan packages to eight organisations around England to enable them to significantly grow their contract income.  The funding package will be backed up by a range of training, development and networking support provided by the CTA and Plunkett over the life of the programme.  The funding, totalling almost £1 million, will be input by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Department for Transport, the Commission for Rural Communities and Futurebuilders England. Further information on...

Rural community-owned enterprise is on a roll. A banner headline in the Sunday Telegraph proclaims "The Rise of the Archers Co-operative". The best part of a million people tune in to hear the residents of Ambridge discuss how to save their village shop through community ownership. In the real world, store openings are at record levels with many more in the pipeline. It's a great time to be at Plunkett, but let's not get carried away.The boom in community-owned village stores is fantastic news, but we still have a long way to go in rural community-ownership. The shop is just...

Every so often, you get to speak at an event where the energy coming off the audience makes you feel like you're standing in front of an open fire. I had that last week when I spoke at the Transition North event in Slaithwaite. The event was an ambitious one, bringing together not only transition supporters from across the North, but also a broad range of people from the co-operative movement. Sponsored by The Co-operative Group, it was a real chance to explore links between the two movements.Following on from leading light in the Transition Towns movement Rob Hopkins and...

I was delighted that Plunkett's work has been recognised in this year's Mutuals Yearbook, which case studied one of the village stores. The yearbook is produced by Mutuo, the impressive think-tank which promotes the role of mutuals.This recognition was extended to an invite to speak on membership at the annual Mutuals Forum alongside the Eaga Partnership and Luton & Dunstable Hospital Foundation Trust. What could our shops teach such a gathering of major mutual organisations? Quite a lot was my argument.The freshness and vitality of our recently formed mutual enterprises meant that their members were doing many things that some...