• Lead Member Oldham Council
  • Participating Members Bristol City Council, Cardiff Council, Greenwich Royal Borough, Oldham Council, Plymouth City Council
  • Year 2019
  • Type Policy Labs

Principles met

  • We will develop systems that enable citizens to be equal partners in designing and commissioning public services and in determining the use of public resources.
  • We will promote community-based approaches to economic development that focus on supporting the creation of jobs, social enterprises and other businesses and providing an environment for co-operative and mutual enterprises to thrive.
  • We will capture and ‘expand’ the experience and learning from individual projects and approaches in order to encourage broader application of co-operative principles within individual member Councils and across the Network.
  • We will support the development of a framework and criteria for social value, giving substance to the concept and supporting Councils with the tools to ensure better local social and economic outcomes.
  • In exploring new ways of meeting the priority needs of our communities we will encourage models, such as co-operatives and mutuals, which give greater influence and voice to staff and users. in designing and commissioning public services and in determining the use of public resources.

About the project

Led by Oldham Council this project will show how Co-operative Councils can address their food poverty and healthy eating objectives (building on the Sustainable Food Cities principles) through local partnerships with sustainable local businesses (often, but not always, co-operatives or other social enterprises).

It will show how such initiatives can contribute to local job creation, the local food economy and improved health outcomes. The proposal involves a series of workshops, research opportunities, learning and exchange visits, case studies and producing a final report/video that is to be presented at both the CCIN Annual Conference and the Sustainable Food Cities Annual Conference in 2019.

Coop approaches to sustainable food