Lowick Cluster of Social Enterprises

Conclusions

Lowick school is an important project because it is a project that nearly reached fruition, but failed: a local community developed a social enterprise model for maintaining a near viable village school, but the model failed to become a reality.   Unfortunately the odds were stacked against them and the Local Authority proceeded with closure.  Lowick shows that with enough imagination schools in rural areas are capable of building up complementary income streams and remaining viable.  In other EU Member States (e.g. France) much smaller schools with rolls as low as ten are kept open because municipalities believe that a school is the centre of a village. 

The potential development of the overall school site and facilities are ongoing – and the development work of the Educational Trust itself, is unfinished business.  At the heart of the Trust’s aspirations lies a desire to re-establish some type of primary education facility set up as a social enterprise, within the former school premises.  With this in mind the Trust remains in discussion with the current owners of the school – the Church of England – as well as with the local community and its wider network of partners and supporters as to the ways forward for the social enterprise.  The immediate and ongoing work for the Trust includes:

  • Maintaining communication networks now that the school has closed and the opportunity for the daily contact it provided has ceased
  • Securing the property assets occupied by the Trust
  • Researching and developing long term funding streams associated with viable and sustainable community benefit and social enterprise
  • Developing funding bids.

The Church could play a significant role in the future development of the site by handing back the asset that it ‘inherited’ as a result of church schools being incorporated into the state system in the 1940s.