East Oxford community group successful in hitting fundraising target

Flo’s – The Place in the Park will be based in the former children’s centre in Florence Park, East Oxford, and was told last week that its fundraising target would be topped up by Co-Operatives UK.

The new facility will have a cafe, nursery, community drop-in space and other meeting rooms.

A founding member of Flo’s, Annie Davy, said: “What we are trying to provide is a ‘children’s centre phoenix’ offering services in a new way – supporting families and communities through locally owned effort and funded by social enterprise.

“The community is chomping at the bit to finally get into the building, which has largely been empty for over year, and bring it back to life.”

A steering group was supported by Oxford charity Aspire and city-based ethical investment platform Ethex.

The groups have raised money to regenerate the children’s centre, which left families devastated when it closed in February 2017.

It was made necessary after Oxfordshire County Council cut £6m in funding for open access services at 44 centres.

It ran a transition fund of £1m to provide grants for groups who wanted to run universal provision of children’s services. Aspire was given £30,000 from that to help with the centre.

Ethex helped Flo’s launch a community share offer in April – on which people could invest and have an active interest in the project.

As of last week, it had raised £34,219 and the offer closed yesterday. Co-Operatives UK will boost that money to £50,000.

That money will be used to carry out initial refurbishment works in the centre and to provide other funding.

Josh Brewer, Ethex’s senior business development manager, says: “At a time where communities often lose out at the expense of government austerity cuts, this way of generating funds offers local people the chance to collectively take on ownership of a community enterprise.”

For more information visit justgiving.com/campaigns/charity/aspireoxfordshire/flosplaceinthepark