Community Business / Social Enterprise Case Studies

These case studies illustrate the wide range of social value being generated by social and community businesses across Coventry and Warwickshire.

Coventry Bike Project

Coventry and Warwickshire Co-operative Development Agency (CDA) has been funded by WMCA to deliver “The Coventry Way,” one of several West Midland Cluster projects,

The Project focuses on Social Enterprises that meet core community needs, helping them to consider how they diversify their offer, grow and satisfy community need.

As part of the project CDA networked with and interviewed Social Enterprises and other community organisations operating in the social economy to identify Community need in the St Michaels ward of Coventry. The ward includes areas amongst the most deprived 10% in England.

Conversations with the Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre and other local organisations indicated a demand for bikes for those newly arrived in Coventry.

With no provision in the City, clients are referred to the Bike Project in Birmingham.

Referrals are limited to 11 per month with an average wait of 5/6 months for clients to receive an appointment after the referral.

Requests for bikes are currently running at around 20- 25 per month - there is limited capacity/resource within CRMC to support clients with these referrals/waiting time/after care. This is resulting in travel issues for many migrants in Coventry.

As part of the work on the Cluster Project in St Michaels seeking to understand the activities and services that are available in the area and the needs of the community, CDA met with the Peace House Charity. Within this project sits the Coventry Cycle Centre that repair and refurbish donated bikes that are then sold to the local community. Four volunteers manage and lead the project on Tuesdays from 10.00am to 2.00pm – offering a safe space to those who want to help out. This project is operating on a very small scale and cannot keep up with demand.

CWCDA also identified The Positive Youth Foundation have been running “Go Foleshill” since 2020 – with a focus on addressing health inequalities and partner with the Muslim Resource Centre to develop and run Female Only cycling activities They also have a new venue at Broad Heath Primary School where they are running female and young people sessions. – and partner with British Cycling and Coventry City Council to deliver cycling activities They are also looking to train coaches from within the local community to deliver sessions

As the mapping of projects and subsequent conversations continued, CDA identified other organisations including Coventry City Mission who collect bikes that are donated for recycling at the Household Recycling and Reuse Centre and Motorvate UK - an established community-based organisation which repairs, recycles and redistributes bikes to the Coventry community.
Following on from this work CDA facilitated an action group to establish a Coventry Bike Project and is currently working with volunteers to establish a separate CIC to develop capacity within Coventry to repair and refurbish bikes. Conversations are taking place to develop the supply of Bikes with the West Midlands police and Coventry rail station. CWCDA is also supporting the action group to secure funding and gain support from statutory bodies, e.g. Coventry City Council.

The Coventry Way Cluster project has identified and connected local organisations and is acting as a facilitator to alleviate a significant social problem in Coventry.

The projects innovative approach has enabled a local community to find solutions to its transport problem. Further work will enable the Coventry Bike Project to begin operating and help to solve the transport issue for migrants. The project will also support Coventry City Council in trying to make Coventry an environmentally friendly City.