BODMIN’S Old Library has been flagged up nationally as an example of how community businesses can help UK high streets to thrive.

A new report on the matter has been published by the London School of Economics and commissioned by independent trust Power to Change. It describes how tackling fragmented and remote property ownership, and the blight of empty buildings, is vital to the future of town centres.

The Old Library in Bodmin shows how community access to and ownership of key properties can be pivotal in this process.

“Saving the High Street: the community takeover” reports that confusion over who owns high street buildings and absentee landlords with no vested interest in local places are a barrier to creating good high street regeneration strategies.

The report also shows that where local authorities have helped facilitate community business ownership and access to both public and privately-owned buildings, as with The Old Library in Bodmin, it has created more vibrant and resilient high streets.

The LSE report shows how community run businesses, because they are tailored to local requirements, bring a stability to a high street that contrasts with remote corporate businesses more inclined to pull out of areas when business models stop working. 

In the case of The Old Library in Bodmin, the local authority has taken significant steps to help the local community takeover and continue running the building for community benefit since it ceased functioning as a library in 2017. This prominent building on Bodmin’s high street has remained in use and provides a significant economic boost to the high street by attracting more people.   

Fin Irwin, CEO of intoBodmin CIC, said: “The Old Library was built by Passmore Edwards as a way of inspiring the local community and promoting social mobility by offering access to books.

“Having taken on the building to create a community and cultural asset in the town, we look to build on that legacy through inspirational events, activities and opportunities. Multi-use, community managed spaces offer the public an opportunity to connect with others in a way that no other organisation or business on the high street is able to do and the sense of ownership and pride that that instils is hugely valuable to the town.”

Built in 1896, Bodmins’s Old Library housed the town’s library until 2017 when it was re-located to the Cornwall County Council offices.

The local authority was about to put The Old Library on the market for redevelopment as flats. However, Community Interest Company intoBodmin seized the opportunity to save the space and with local authority help, was able to take it on.

The Old Library has found a new purpose as a thriving community and cultural venue and includes a café, performance space and office space. The venue now brings more people into the high street, which in turn benefits other local businesses.

Activities at The Old Library include: classes and workshops, play readings, stand-up comedy and public events; a repair room, where expert volunteers help people make repairs and learn new skills; and a film club Bodmin in Motion. Theatre and music is regularly performed by local and touring companies.

Vidhya Alakeson, CEO of Power to Change, said: “Whilst changing retail habits may have kick-started the decline of our high streets, it is the underlying issue of fragmented property ownership and disengaged remote landlords that in the end will choke the life from them if we don’t act now.

“Community ownership is vital to the revival of the high street. This new research shows what can be achieved in places like Bodmin.”