A cooperative bakery in the shadow of Liverpool FC’s stadium is aiming to transform a derelict terrace into affordable homes for the local community

As Liverpool FC’s Anfield stadium gleams in the April sunshine, the abandoned, steel-shuttered houses cowering in its shadow serve as a poignant reminder of the impact developments can have on their host communities.

But in the unassuming bakery at the end of the terrace lies the heart of a movement working to transform this run-down area back into the vibrant neighbourhood residents remember.

The Homebaked cooperative bakery is in prime position to sell pies to some of the 40,000 football fans who come to the Anfield stadium on an average match day. What its customers might not realise is that in the back room of the Victorian premises a group of locals have cooked up a plan to transform the empty properties next door into 26 high-quality, affordable flats.

Thanks to a £215,000 grant from Power to Change, the refurbishment of the accommodation above the bakery will start in May. Once completed, the four-bed flat will be let at a rent comparable to that of properties in the area occupied by people on benefits. The aim is to rent to local young people, including three trainees who will contribute to the building work on the flat.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The terrace that the Homebaked cooperative is looking to renovate. Photograph: Mark Loudon

Homebaked has formed a separate Community Land Trust (CLT), also on a membership basis, to make the regeneration project commercially viable. The CLT crafts the vision for a better neighbourhood, and provides the planning, funding and business structure, while the bakery generates the brand and income, and acts as a focal point for the local community. The completion of the flat will then be the proof of concept Liverpool City Council needs to hand over ownership of the flat’s freehold to the Homebaked CLT.

The CLT can then set in motion the next stage of the plan – to raise the funds to purchase the 10-house terrace which, as well as flats, will incorporate shops and businesses on the ground floor, all to be developed using local plans and labour.

“This is not about the gentrification of Anfield. It’s all about working with the community and evolving ideas,” says Carolyn Starr, Homebaked CLT’s project manager.

In Anfield ward (pdf), unemployment is 25% (compared to Liverpool’s 15%) and four out of 10 children live in poverty. Looking around at the derelict shops and flattened housing, Homebaked’s plan seems like something dreamed up after one too many match day pints – except that so much has already been achieved.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest One of Homebaked’s ‘build your own high street’ workshops, which are open to everyone from the neighbourhood. Photograph: Agent Marketing

Spawned from an arts project in the 2010 Liverpool Biennale, Homebaked has grown into a community-led housing and enterprise scheme incorporating the bakery which makes and sells an average of 1,200 pies a week (including a contract for 700-1,000 to Liverpool FC for hospitality on match days), a well-used café providing employment and training, and a wholesale pie business. During that time, its annual turnover has grown from £60,000 to £250,000, with 12 staff and dozens of volunteers.

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It all started from a sense of despair and an angry determination by local residents not to let their home patch and identity be destroyed after 20 years of plans – some but not all of which were carried out – to flatten the area, forcing many out of their homes and communities and leaving others living in uncertainty.

Angela MacKay, whose home of 20 years has several times been threatened with demolition, is now a board member of the CLT, working to bring life back to Anfield. She originally moved into the area because its high street was bright, with local shops trading into the evening.

Tears roll down her face as she describes the changes since: “Everything was being knocked down and nothing was being put in its place. People say this is a deprived area, but if you are living here, working here and bringing up your children here, it’s your home.”

While Liverpool’s failed regeneration plans have left lasting scars on the city, Homebaked has become something of a social movement, with aspirations to develop more projects in the community, including a school.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘The bakery is the guinea pig to prove that this way of operating can work,’ says the chairman of Homebaked. Photograph: Mark Loudon

“They have made it stack up financially and there’s a genuine need for what they do,” says Patrick Hurley, the Labour councillor for Mossley Hill in south Liverpool. Hurley, who has taken an interest in the development of Homebaked, also runs Social Enterprise Network Liverpool, which supports the development and growth of entrepreneurship across the region.

People who left the area, including Anfield-bred chairman of Homebaked John Cardon, are now beginning to move back. Cardon, who has worked in international companies around the world, believes the Homebaked community renewal model has the potential to be replicated, although he’s clear that context is everything – in Homebaked’s case, the football club, the pies and the local community.

“The bakery is the guinea pig to prove that this way of operating can work,” he says. “The fact we have survived is as much about the bloody-mindedness of local residents as our business skills.”

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