MINUTES
The main item discussed was The Watermill at Little Salkeld
Discussed finding a way to buy, and run this as a community asset.
Various organisational structures would need to be examined but the most obvious is perhaps a co-operative. However we believe quality advice would be required to ensure that both ownership and tax issues were properly though through. The Co-operative (CRS) provides grants to help new organisations work through these implications and get registered. Viv Lewis would be a person to contact.
The funds could be raised via a combination of grants and a community share issue. The Plunkett Foundation already appears to be involved so could be an early contact point. However we would suggest that this was only done once an outline business plan had been produced. Our understanding is that a share issue over £250k needs to be sanctioned by the FSA and comply with a set of FSA rules and regulations to ensure that potential investors were not being mislead etc. There are Social Enterprise organisations that we do this for you or there are local solicitors we favoured the former.
The Mill is six businesses all of which could be managed in house or franchised out. We would also want to look at symmetries and links with other businesses like Moondawn farm
- The existing milling operation. This is successful in its market and we would look at other opportunities to expand this market further. We would need to consider staffing and expertise to run a quite complex business and so would need to take advice.
- The Tea shop. This has a loyal client base and seems to work well, maybe opportunities for supplying it at least in part with food grown on the land.
- The shop. Again this could be developed as the nearest competition is Langwathby or the Co-operative at Lazonby. Initial thoughts are that it would be wrong to go into direct competition but opportunity to extend this as a farm shop?
- We understand that there are 7 acres of land, which could be used as a smallholding. This could generate fresh food for the café/restaurant as well as being a community resource and training centre.
- Residential and accommodation. Could this be developed to support other aspects of the business i.e. B&B, over night stay on cycle route, residential courses?
- Training courses. A limited range of courses is currently offered but these could be significantly extended to include some of Niall’s skills and expertise.
There are various other issues to be thought about like converting the site, making vegetable garden for the shop/restaurant/courses, more energy generation, rearranging the use of buildings etc.
However to make this a viable proposal we feel that we would probably need to raise circa £1m to both buy and develop the potential of this site.
Also discussed speaking to other people/group who may also be interested so we can make a joint effort if possible.