sector services, which provided useful rental income.
Figure 4.1: The Cheviot Centre from outside
Source: Rachel Sinton
The building was old, so it was not cheap to run; in addition, a full-time manager was needed. Fortunately, this early period coincided with generous national government funding for local initiatives of various kinds. This meant that, after the first couple of years, the Cheviot Centre operated at a reasonable surplus, based on a number of tenants who were themselves the recipients of public or charitable funding. Meanwhile, the GGT expanded its activities by investing in high-street improvements, funded by the national Market Towns Initiative, creating affordable housing for rent and taking over the local youth hostel. These initiatives helped to expand the revenue-earning asset base of the GGT, though public funding was still an important contribution. The financial basis of the GGT was therefore significantly affected by public sector budget cuts and the reduction of charitable funding opportunities in the 2010s. The revenues for the Cheviot Centre itself no longer covered running costs.
So, what to do about this? The GGT was aware of potential demand for more office space from the increasing numbers of microbusinesses in the area. The national charity RVS also located its regional office in the building, where they had begun to run a day event for older people. In 2012, the GGT saw an opportunity to do three positive things in an interrelated way. First, the trust applied for, and got, £212,000 in grants from the Rural Growth Network and the National Lottery for a major refurbishment of the building. It was pretty much gutted inside, providing extra office space without losing community facilities (the GGT made sure that local groups, especially Wooler U3A, the biggest customer of the Cheviot Centre, were kept onside during what was potentially a worrying time for them). Three ‘pods’ were also put in the garden – attractive one- or two-person units designed for start-up businesses. These have proved very popular (see Figure 4.2). Some small businesses have indeed moved on to larger premises and the GGT has never had any problems letting them. One early tenant who had been commuting to a job in Newcastle started their own business in the one-person pod, switched to a two-person pod within a year and then moved into one of the larger offices in the main building when they took on another employee.
Source: Meg Vickers
Therefore, the first positive achievement was a significant improvement in the small business offer in Glendale – particularly for start-ups. Currently, more than 20 people are employed, either full-time or part-time, in the various businesses and activities based in the Cheviot Centre. In parallel with this refurbishment, the facilities of a community room were improved, raising the roof to provide for a Wi-Fi-connected sound system, which has not only allowed for film shows, but also provided a useful seminar space for business and community use.
At the same time, and after more than a decade of trying, the county agreed to move Wooler Library into the Cheviot Centre. By 2012, Northumberland County Council was beginning to suffer the cuts that have since further eroded their capacity for service delivery. This forced officers to seek new ways to deliver services. Meanwhile, by this time, the GGT had established a reputation as a capable local agency. The second achievement in this period was to bring Wooler Library and the Tourist Information Centre together with a single front desk. Sharing Northumberland County Council and GGT staff makes both services much cheaper to run and therefore more viable. The former library building just off the high street was transferred to GGT for £1 and was converted into two attractive affordable homes for the over 55s. The old library had been open for just two half days a week; the new library is now open six days a week, with a very evident uptake in usage. The Tourist Information Centre moved from their upstairs office to the reception area, thus creating a far more visible presence in the town. There is now a single reception desk for all activities in the Cheviot Centre, staffed by one person. As far as Northumberland County Council is concerned, these two services are now being operated efficiently as a much improved service is being provided at a very much reduced cost – so much so that the county have used the Glendale model as a template elsewhere.
A couple of years after this major redevelopment, another opportunity arose. The Police Authority for Northumbria decided to close a number of stand-alone police offices, including Wooler. The authority looked around the town for suitable, smaller premises to move into, and also considered moving out of Wooler altogether. At that stage, the GGT was very concerned to retain a police presence in the town. The individual police officers themselves were none too keen to lose their historic ‘police station’, but moving into the Cheviot Centre meant much reduced running costs – and it was preferable to a move out of town. The GGT did not want the whole character of the Cheviot Centre to change, with uniformed officers walking in and out of the front door all day, so the building was rapidly adapted to provide a degree of self-containment. This provided another ‘anchor tenant’, paying a significant rent on a long-term basis.
This brings us to the third achievement: the trust now runs a popular and successful community centre that actually makes a surplus. In other words, it is sustainable, as is the GGT as a whole. The small staff team (two full-time and two part-time, including the accountant) works collaboratively and flexibly, and the GGT continues to take new initiatives. When Active Northumberland pulled out of the marketing operation for tourist information centres across the county in 2018, the GGT decided to take it over and do it itself. The reception staff probably know better than outsiders what will sell to the visitors and locally, and it can be done without upsetting local traders on the high street too much (see Figure 4.3) – and staff enjoy trying out new lines.
Figure 4.3: The reception area
Source: Rachel Sinton
The Cheviot Centre now exists as a thriving operation, realising the ambition to combine community and business activities, encouraging the cross-fertilisation of ideas. The Cheviot Centre is also the office base of the GGT, which has come to manage a varied portfolio of assets: 18 affordable housing units; commercial properties on the high street; and the Youth Hostel, now leased to a locally based operator. In 2019, the GGT has taken on another major conversion project. In addition, it has come to act as a platform for generating initiatives that, in time, become self-supporting, from the Wooler Youth Drop-In, to the Wooler Wheel cycle events that now run twice a year, and a small grant fund, created in partnership with Northumberland County Council’s promotion of health and well-being. All those who interact with the GGT, from tenants to representatives of national and local government, experience it as a friendly face in the midst of the flow of multiple activities.
To achieve all this, the GGT has had to act in an innovative and imaginative way, trying out new ways of doing things and demonstrating what a community-sensitive service delivery culture can look like. It has always been infused by the idea of ‘partnership’, both among proactive people in Glendale and in relations with external agencies. In this way, the GGT has become valued by formal government agencies forced into finding ways to ‘co-produce’ public goods and services with market and civil society agencies. Throughout, it has been important to maintain a strong vision, along with a commitment to finding new, more entrepreneurial and more approachable ways