 Across the UK, communities are finding ways to take back control of their local economies, making it work for them. When I was growing up, we had coal mines in Wigan. My dad was a coal miner. That's what I wanted to do. The last 20 years since we've lost those industries, there's been a generation of people who don't know where opportunities lie. My father's time when he first came over in Bradford was probably one of the richest cities in the UK. And the fall is drastic. It's like an empire collapse. It's just come on itself. The stories from Wigan and Bradford are not unique and they're not the only places that are being left behind. But there is hope. Community economic development is one solution. Community economic development is a process by which people that are working, living and running businesses in places can come together to find new solutions and activities to restructure the economy that meets their needs. With the right support and approach, communities can turn around their local economies, creating businesses and jobs where they're most needed. Co-operatives, businesses owned and controlled by local people often make a big impact. It's a very diverse, multicultural city. We are a pot of talent and knowledge yet to be explored. We've set up Aberdeenwall Co-operative with the idea of allowing the CUNES to be consulted, find out what kind of projects, ideas they'd like to set up and then look in partnership with the public and the private sector, helping people set up their own CUNE to businesses. This place is a community business which we set up to bring women out of isolation and along the nurse into a community setting and give them a sense of a purpose and a sense of achievement. We have around 50 members a week to week. They come and stay and make something for themselves or for people that come in and make specific orders with us. As their own skills improve, if they decided they wanted to branch out and make their own community business, then we could help them do that as well and we could only get bigger and expand from there. We run a nursery, we run a number of community hubs and we have an enterprise coach which helps budding entrepreneurs. Through the wealth of opportunities that Bradford Trident has created, there's a real sense of empowerment. The end result is an empowered community doing things for themselves. We did some work to look at what could be installed on the different roofs of Bradford Trident under community ownership and it's really nice to see a community energy project that's got the panels installed generating electricity and to generate a community benefit fund. I think the work that we're doing here in Aberyn Ward has definitely got the ability to be replicated across the country. Control of resources locally is something that can work anywhere where there's people, where there's community, people work together and do amazing things. Stronger communities are a foundation for a better economy. Co-operatives UK can help. Get in touch for more information.