This July, the Arch Company worked with one of its charitable tenants, Groundwork London, to provide match funding for 17 tenant-led community events in our railway arches. The funding of up to £2,500 per tenant paid for a series of exciting activities, designed to engage with locals and remind them of the brilliant businesses that call arches home.
Ranging from complimentary wellness classes to street food markets, co-design workshops to sustainably printed clothing sessions, the day was created to reignite the community’s passion for railway arches and also ensure tenants were able to maximise their involvement too.
Groundwork London is a federation of trusts that works with communities across the UK to improve social opportunities for communities. The Groundwork movement was established in 1981 by visionary environmentalist John Davidson. Davidson wanted to bring together communities, businesses, and government to improve quality of life and promote sustainable development in deprived areas. Today, Groundwork London’s grants team continue this work. The Grants team works with funders, like The Arch Company, to connect them with community groups, charities, or businesses and offer their support. Groundwork London also administers Transport for London’s walking and cycling grants as part of their ongoing commitment to sustainability.
Team lead Martin Petry said: “We are happy to support projects that are about bringing people together around shared community assets. It’s quite unique to be working with a landlord to deliver this kind of project, but we really liked the way that Arch Day was designed to bring communities together to celebrate their local arch businesses and showcase what they can offer to people near to them.”
In addition to partnering with The Arch Company to deliver the match-funding scheme, Groundwork London is also a tenant of The Arch Company’s non-arch buildings. It owns the former station building at Denmark Hill in Southwark, which is now occupied by the Phoenix pub. The building was saved by Groundwork London and reopened as a community asset in 1984, after being threatened with demolition in the early 1980s, and has been restored to its former glory.
For our tenants, Groundwork London offers a wide variety of grant programmes that are open to small businesses. They focus on schemes that can bring organisations closer to their communities, which are ideal for many railway-arch based business. More information about funding opportunities is available at www.groundwork.org.uk.
Phoenix Pub, Windsor Walk, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8BB