Homebaked
Liverpool
Residents saved their iconic neighbourhood bakery and transformed it into a thriving community run-business.
Operations Manager Angela McKay outside the bakery
Homebaked started in 2010 as a project in the old Mitchell’s bakery next to the Anfield stadium. The building was one of many buildings in the area that was to be demolished as part of the government’s controversial Housing Market Renewal initiative. In 2012, the Homebaked Community Land Trust (CLT) was born with the aim of renovating the bakery to create workspace for social enterprise and affordable housing.
The Homebaked Bakery Co-operative was incorporated in June 2012 by a group of local residents passionate about the possibilities of reopening the bakery in community ownership, and creating a successful enterprise with social as well as financial value.
The CLT has started on a process of designing and planning with the local residents to start breathing new life into the local area, while the bakery generates the brand and income, and acts as a hub for the local community.
“It’s easy to underestimate the power of voices and it’s easy to be passive, but if you just get out there and do something you can show what’s possible,” Cally Anne Highfield, local resident and Homebaked staff member told The Long + Short. “You can tear down bricks but you can’t take away the stories.”
Tags Community business Community ownership
Find out more
Further reading
- Homebaked Community Land Trust: Britt Jurgensen. Far Nearer, 8/9/16
- ‘We are the economy’: the community businesses coming together to transform Liverpool. Independent, 17/5/19
- This is not about gentrification’: the pie shop reviving an Anfield street. Guardian, 19/4/17
- Homebaked: the cooperative bakery reviving Anfield, loaf by loaf. The Long + Short, 10/11/16
Contact details
New rules needed
Policies that can help unleash the potential of this or similar initiatives across the UK.
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Turn RBS into a network of local banks
New banks would be owned in trust for the public benefit and mandated to lend only within their local area. -
Create devolved ‘just transition’ funds
Government should devolve a proportion of its Green New Deal budget to support local just transition plans. -
Reverse austerity
Austerity has pummelled living standards and public services. Now is the time to end it. -
Expand the community and co-operative banking sector
Stakeholder banks can be mandated to serve the public interest or local communities rather than simply to maximise returns. -
Create affordable workspaces
Affordable workspaces are essential to the survival of independent businesses. -
Promote community wealth building
Support co-ops to thrive in their localities by anchoring them within place-based industrial and community wealth building strategies.
