Community buildings and facilities
Whether village halls, village pubs, village shops and post offices, libraries, parks or playing fields a great number of community buildings and facilities are increasingly under threat due mainly to economic pressures.
The Rural Shops Alliance recently commented that ‘people move into villages with shops and move out when they close' With fewer and fewer services available, members of communities can become isolated if they are unable to travel easily to the nearest point of service.
The Rural Community council cannot prevent all of these closures but through day to day contact with communities, we can help to support those who wish to combat the effect of the loss of services.
Support workers can help communities to look at alternative ways of retaining and delivering services, i.e. developing a community shop owned and run by members of the community, or having service provider's work together to provide multi functional building i.e. using part of the village hall for a shop or post office or doctor's surgery.
The IWRCC has a long track record of supporting facilities such as village halls to secure funding, be well managed and be up to date on relevant legislation. In the last year our work has extended to include supporting communities responding to potential loss of services due to reductions in public sector expenditure, for example by providing one to one support and general training on such issues as finance and legal issues and by supporting them through the work of the Island's Volunteer Centre which we run.
We have also taken on an umbrella role for 2 rural libraries, Bembridge and Brighstone and enabled the re-opening of Godshill's Village Shop and Post Office through the work of our trading subsidiary Island Community Ventures.
For further information about the policy work ACRE are doing in this area please see
http://www.acre.org.uk/our-work/community-assets
