Homebaked High Street
Part of our vision is for a thriving high street that serves everyone in our community. We strengthen the local economy by supporting local and community business development on our high street, connecting local actors, building capacity and partnerships, offering opportunities for pop-up and test trading and showcasing local skills and ideas.
ANFIELD IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT
We sparked the creation of a collective cross sector businesses and organisations working to make our neighbourhood thrive and facilitate a growing local business network (including high street businesses, sole traders, and social service providers) to collaborate on retaining value in the local economy, building community wealth, and providing services to local people. Our role is as catalyst and facilitator, we bring in best practice examples and capacity-building opportunities on demand and support partnership initiatives. The aim of the network is to strengthen the local economy and supply chains, build capacity and partnerships (especially around low carbon solutions and local sharing economy), connect and strengthen social services across formal and informal providers and support emerging entrepreneurs, practitioners, and ideas.
HOMEBAKED CLT COMMUNITY MARKETS
We operate regular public markets which offer local businesses and initiatives the opportunity to showcase, and (test) trade. These hybrid events act as a local meeting space, and alongside regular stalls, we offer workshops, cultural activities and access to advice services and sharing economies. The markets currently act as the CLT’s shop front window and a forum for formal and informal neighbourhood planning activities and consultation on ideas and new services.
HOMESQUARE
Just adjacent to Oakfield Terrace is a small piece of green that has captured our imagination for some time; it connects the High Street to ‘The Rec’ (the green space behind the terrace) and has heavily featured in our ‘Thing on the Rec’ activities as a space for market stalls. Inspired by the many stories and contributions we heard from local residents, we began a mini-landscaping design and build process for the space, transforming it into several iterations of use, which now remain with us as desires and visions for a more permanent development.
The development process has been driven by the group that formed as part of the ‘Thing on the Rec’ commission, ‘Homefarm’: this is now the community business start-up ‘Homegrown Collective’ and is supported by Homebaked CLT.
In collaboration we have held several landscaping and horticulture courses and, in the process, activated the square as a place for growing, playing and get-togethers.’Why don’t you grow hops?’ someone said – and this is how Homegrown Collective started brewing.
We would like this space to be integrated into Oakfield Terrace as a public square, with the potential for more permanent market stalls, events and places for people to meet for a chat or to spend some quiet time.
Photos: Mark Loudon, Andrea Ku, Britt Jurgensen; Design sketch: Nicolas Henninger
