This is an exciting idea to put our local, high street shops online to raise awareness in the community of the shopping opportunities in Bacup, to encourage shopping local and to explore the possibility of a unique venture to create online shopping and delivery to your home from local independent retailers.

We have funding to explore this opportunity and run a four month pilot scheme trying different ways to do this and to engage with the shopkeepers and business owners who would benefit from such a scheme, with the aim of boosting sales for the local retailer and encouraging customers back to the local high street and expanding the offer from the small town centre.

This venture will work to bring together organisations and groups in Bacup as one to produce a sustainable strategy and build a community infrastructure to respond to the needs of the social and business community of Bacup including bringing in funding. Whilst Rossendale Borough Council continue to try and secure funding to regenerate the town of Bacup it will be sensible for the work to create this DTA to begin, as for it to succeed it has to be carefully planned and developed and draw upon local knowledge and expertise.

BaSE is fortunate in having the staff and skill sets to support 18-24 year olds back into employment through self-employment. We see this as vital in view of lost jobs, and fewer paid opportunities as we come out of the nightmare of the pandemic.

We are therefore currently developing training resources to provide young people with the confidence, knowledge and support necessary to make a success of a small business. We will ensure that our mentors have proven success in business, and specific skills, both for developing and running a business.

We are currently looking for funding to provide the service at no charge and hope to launch this new venture by the end of 2021.

We have long awaited the opportunity to bring this venture off the drawing board, when we last tried the time just wasn’t right for Bacup and Rossendale to grasp this opportunity.

This idea brings together all our local growers, food producers and even crafters under one roof to sell their wares online and the customer can have freshly grown/bottled/crafted produce delivered to their door from one or all the businesses featured.