Community Businesses Thrive

Community Owned Pubs and Shops Prosper.

The Plunkett Foundation published two reports on the 5th July 2017 titled: “Community Shops: A better form of business 2017” and “Co-operative Pubs: A better form of business 2017“.

The reports make great reading and clearly show that the community ownership business model can be very successful where private enterprise has sometimes failed.

The research shows that at the end of 2016:

• There were 348 community shops trading in the UK providing essential services to 1,400 remote rural communities
• Community shops created 1,114 paid jobs and 9,605 volunteer positions
• Community shops generated a combined turnover of £54m and donated £125,000 to community projects
• No community shops have closed within the last two years, resulting in a 95% long term survival rate
• The co‑operative pub sector had grown by 15% with six new pubs opening during the year
• 46 co‑operative pubs were trading, widely spread across England and Wales
  [the 50th co-operative pub started trading in June 2017]
• 90 groups were actively exploring setting up a co-operative pub
• No co‑operative pubs had closed maintaining an impressive 100% survival rate

Please read the full article on The Plunkett Foundation website.

This clearly shows that there is no reason why The Thorold Arms shouldn’t prosper too.