Ancoats Dispensary Trust – community ownership and local economic development in action

This week, CLES Researcher, Amy-Grace was invited to join ‘Divas up North’ on Salford City Radio to discuss community ownership and local economic development using her experience as a Director of Ancoats Dispensary Trust. Here’s the latest on the project…

Amy-Grace has been a Director of Ancoats Dispensary Trust for the last 4 years. The Trust is dedicated to restoring the grade 2 Ancoats Dispensary for the community and transforming it into a mixed use community hub. The Trust have now applied for Stage 2 heritage lottery funding for the remainder of a 5.25 million grant and will hear whether they have been successful in early September. However, in order to match this funding the Trust are raising funds from other grants, trusts, and philanthropists and will be doing a community share offer to ensure genuine community control and ownership of the building.

Amy-Grace and the Trust are keeping busy and are working with Politica to deliver community engagement through Art to create beautiful images for the Dispensary’s hoardings. If you’d like to get involved, and or find out more about the Dispensary projects and its role as a sustainable community business, please see our website for contact details  http://www.ancoatsdispensarytrust.co.uk/.  Our business and conservation plans are available upon request.

Listen to the radio interview here (04.44min).