Carole Rich was given her first garden gnome when the housing co-op that she formed with her neighbours opened, thirty six years ago. “They thought I was crazy so it was a gift for crazy woman” she says.

At the time, the street was being demolished and it had taken four long years to get home, this time in new houses formed as Hesketh Street Housing Co-op. Those years had taken every ounce of determination and charm that Carole possessed, visiting slate factories, brick makers, furniture stalls, to keep people together, to keep their belief and to get the new development going.

Today, Carole is on the board not just of the co-op but also of North West Housing Services, which is a vibrant secondary co-op, registered in recent years with input from and now a member of Co-operatives UK.

North West support thirty four housing co-ops across Merseyside. On my visit today to the team, in the run up to Communities Week 2019, I met Carole and visited Lodge Lane East, a second co-op which is taking on a new property to create space for people with disabilities.

Ian, the Treasurer of the co-op, told me the story of the new building they were putting up on derelict ground. The land had been fenced off, with rubbish thrown over and when local people, members of the co-op, looked at the ownership, they found that it had been taken off a convicted criminal via a compulsory purchase order. The city authority owned it, but they didn’t know it.

The co-op, with over two hundred homes and clean finances, having paid off the last of its debts to NatWest Bank, offered to buy it at a discount to put up flats that would be an affordable alternative to the rogue landlords and high rents of the area, itself a short distance from where the controversial £1 Houses: Britain’s cheapest street was filmed.

“As a co-op, we are trying to raise the area, while others are trying to bring it down. We have houses with soiled nappies in the entrance, the remnants of a pig slaughtered in the yards, a brothel now closed down. Private landlords operate with immunity, one responding to damp by ripping out the skirting board and leaving a hole. The authorities should be cracking down on all this, but as a community, we have to fight back ourselves.”

Finance for the development came in part from loans from the other housing co-ops through North West Housing (North West has also invested money in recent community shares issues by other co-ops, including Leeds Community Homes and renewable energy co-ops in Liverpool and Drumlin, Northern Ireland).

With the new building weeks from being completed, the Lodge Lane East co-op members have gained confidence. The works manager told me that they have had no trouble, no threats while they have been there.

“We get a lot of respect. And we have a taste for it now” says Ian.

For Carole, her local area has already begun to come up in the world. A working class area with housing for servants has gone up market, with bohemian cafes and shops on nearby Lark Lane.

The housing co-op means that local people keep a stake in the area, forming a backbone of the community that helps to give it its colour and life. A one up, one down house next to the co-op area sells for £190,000; crazy prices for the city.

For Carole, her collection of gnomes has grown along with her family, smiling out in front of her house and under the awning in her garden. Her grandchildren give her more as gifts.

Carole’s co-op craziness has been passed on.