WESSEX REINVESTMENT TRUST

Devon, Dorset and Somerset are regions divided in prosperity. Despite areas of growth and development, rural disadvantage is increasingly widespread. Poor service provision, low paid employment, and the lack of affordable housing have deepened the need for rural revitalisation. The problem has been compounded by a lack of affordable business accommodation and housing for employees and the need for greater access to finance.

During the Summer and Winter of 2001, small businesses, social enterprises and voluntary organisations across Wessex took part in research to identify gaps in the provision of finance and barriers to rural economic development. Promoted by Community Finance Solutions at the University of Salford and funded by the Countryside Agency, Housing Corporation and Lloyds TSB, it identified the intrinsic link between employment, enterprise and property and revealed demand for locally delivered loan services to develop enterprise and facilitate access to affordable housing and workspace.

The Wessex Reinvestment Trust (WRT) is a groundbreaking initiative, which aims to bridge this gap. Launched as a pilot project in September 2002, it is the first entirely rural community finance initiative in the UK and aims to provide a springboard for rural regeneration. There are three areas of activity that the project will address: (1) Business and Social Enterprise Finance, (2) home loans for vulnerable people living in houses that fail the Decent Homes standard and (3) pioneering Land and Property transactions creating 'community benefit' through a network of local property trusts.

WRT will provide:

• Funding for rural enterprise - loans of between £500 - £20,000 to support small business and social enterprise start-ups and expansion.
• Loan finance for housing - typically loans of about £5,000 for low to moderate income homeowners to tackle disrepair.
• Access to property and workspace - by facilitating pioneering land and property transactions, transforming redundant land and property into affordable housing and workspace for the benefit of the wider community. The Trust will also provide a central resource of property development and financing expertise.
• Potential clients will be referred to WRT through a regional network of voluntary and statutory support agencies. In the initial two-year pilot phase WRT aims to distribute a minimum of £200,000 in loans which will represent about 100 transactions, with a projected loan figure of more than £2 million in seven years.
• WRT is a not-for-profit Community Development Financial Institution. CDFIs seek innovative approaches to community regeneration and aim to fill gaps that conventional sources, like the high street banks, cannot meet alone. It is expected that most of the new or evolutionary services from WRT will be delivered in partnership with the wide range of existing statutory and voluntary organisations throughout the South West such as Co-operative Development Agency Dorset, the Community Enterprise Unit and specialist agencies such as the Food Link projects.

For more information contact: www.wessexrt.co.uk.