The co-operative movement has always depended on co-operatives supporting one another. Yet established housing co-operatives often hold significant assets in reserves with few avenues to deploy them in ways that are both financially sound and mission-aligned – particularly at a time when so little new co-operative development is occurring.
Stirchley Co-operative Development (SCD) is a fully mutual, multi-stakeholder co-operative in Birmingham, bringing together residential tenants and worker co-operative tenants, delivering three community businesses and 39 homes at social rent. It is exactly the kind of project the movement should be rallying behind.
SCD grew out of Gung Ho, a five-bedroom housing co-op founded by members of Birmingham Bike Foundry, whose workers wanted more space to live, work, and raise families nearby without being priced out of the rapidly gentrifying high street. We partnered with Artefact (an art gallery and café) and Loaf Bakery to create Stirchley Co-operative Development, delivering three community businesses and 39 homes at social rent, in a model that is, to our knowledge, unique in England. The building is bespoke with communal space, a courtyard open to the public, laundries, and work-spaces specialty fit workers co-operatives.
This project is now at risk, and the co-operative movement can save it.
To complete the purchase of the building, due to a recent issue with our building partner GreenSquare Accord where they raised the purchase price by an additional two million pounds, we are seeking bond investment from supporters who share our values. We are offering non-transferable bonds at up to 3.5% interest per annum, with a minimum investment of £20,000 and a minimum term of five years; longer terms of ten years or more are particularly helpful to our financial planning. Our target is £1,000,000, with stretch goals of £1.5m and £2m. All three scenarios have been modeled and demonstrate that SCD can service its debts and operate sustainably; the more raised, the lower our dependence on commercial mortgage financing and the stronger our long-term resilience. Bonds are unsecured for investments below £150,000. The lower the interest rate chosen by an investor, the more directly it supports the mission and our ability to succeed as a project.
We have planned to take out a commercial mortgage with Unity Trust Bank, who has worked with SCD over many years, but the increase in interest rates means we cannot raise all the increased funds this way. We are conscious that how this development progresses will shape whether the next co-operative approaching them gets the same opportunity.
For established housing co-operatives, this is a rare and meaningful investment opportunity. Investing in SCD offers a return on those reserves while directly enabling the creation of new co-operative homes. Co-operative Principle Six calls on us to co-operate with each other. Under Principle Six, established co-ops deploying their reserves into new development could be the start of something larger: unlocking more co-operative homes and building a self-sustaining model for growing the sector.
SCD is the only new-build Registered Provider (RP) housing co-operative established in England in over 25 years. From our nearly two decades of experience in co-operative organising, there is no established pathway for delivering affordable co-operative housing at this scale. Radical Routes, while invaluable, cannot scale to meet urban needs. By achieving RP status ourselves, our rents are regulated and we have been able to access Homes England funding directly.
The community land trust movement has largely concluded that pursuing RP status is too difficult to be worth attempting unless Homes England funding is available, and even then, it is not a route designed for co-operative housing communities. The government has stated it wants to see more of this kind of development, but has not put forward the resources needed to make it happen. However, SCD demonstrates that it could be possible.
SCD is trying to show that the co-operative movement can work together, pooling expertise, trust, and resources, to create new housing and regenerate high streets. We already have plans to continue this work at scale. Housing co-operatives understand better than most what is at stake if projects like this one fail, and what becomes possible if they succeed. We hope this project stands as an example of what becomes possible when we act collectively.
If your organisation is in a position to invest, or to raise a resolution with your board or finance committee to explore doing so, we would welcome a conversation.
Please contact us at info@stirchley.coop.
A statement of support from Paradise Housing Cooperative:
It is time for the housing co-operative movement to wake up. We are speaking as one of the smallest Registered Provider Housing Co-ops in the country, housing just 9 members currently.
The founders of our movement organised shops and housing to escape the greed of factories, companies and landlords in the 19th Century. Early supporters of the movement had their power cut, but co-operators shared candles, flour and butter to keep homes lit and bellies full.
Near 200 years later and the forces of greed are once again trying to stop a co-operative before it starts. They are targeting Stirchley on the premise that they stand alone, vulnerable, the first major housing co-operative development in England in 25 years.
We want them to know that they aren’t alone, we pledge our financial support to see the project realised, our solidarity to see us all stronger together.
Our accounts are public, as are all housing co-ops, you can see where we stand. We are staking around 30% of our current cash holdings to this cause, such is the importance to us of being counted and standing together in this moment. We have homes to maintain, bills to pay, regulations to meet, rising costs. But we take the risk gladly given the circumstances, and we call on other RP coops to honestly consider their positions, particularly those larger than us.
The smallest voice can start a movement. We are here, invoking the 6th principle of co-operation among co-operatives. If one of us fails, we all fail, if one of us succeeds, we all succeed.
Wake up, join us.
In solidarity,
Members of Paradise Housing Co-op
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