Current programmes

Plunkett’s partnership with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority ended on 31st March 2025, as scheduled.

Together, we have been able to help community groups across the region to take ownership and operation of local assets such as pubs and shops, that are vacant, at risk of closure or needed by residents. We have helped communities to explore opportunities within their locality and spread the message of community ownership. This has been part of the Combined Authority’s Market Towns Programme which is revitalising the area’s market towns and rural hinterlands.

You can read more about the impact we’ve been made by clicking the buttons on the right.

Whilst the partnership has finished, our support for community-owned businesses has not. Plunkett UK can still offer business support, adviser expertise, and access to our range of recommended suppliers. We are always at the end of a phone or an email, so please stay in touch. Plunkett supports community-owned businesses from idea to reality and beyond.

Allied to Plunkett support, the Combined Authority are also offering support through the Growth Hub. Do contact them to find out how they could help ‘unlock new opportunities for innovative growth and success’.

Plunkett has been working with the Scottish Government’s Scottish Rural Network Unit over the last four years to deliver business advice to communities in Scotland looking to bring their local pub into community ownership, as well as to support those already trading.

The 2024-25 programme of support has provided funded advice to community pub groups, with small development grants and feasibility grants of up to £2,000 available for communities looking to bring their pub into community ownership. Through the programme, we have continued to deliver the Scottish Community Pubs Network, which provides peer-learning and networking opportunities for community-owned pubs across Scotland.

Whilst the grant funding has now finished, Plunkett continues to deliver community business adviser support to Scottish groups involved in community-owned businesses in Scotland. We are always at the end of a phone or an email, so please stay in touch.

With funding from the Dulverton Trust, Plunkett is working to ensure our support service is adequately tailored to meet the needs of communities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to ensure we’re breaking down the barriers to accessing our support – for example, by delivering more of our services in the Welsh language.

In addition, funded advice and support is available to all types of community-owned business across the UK, to help rural communities to create innovative, inclusive spaces that make a real impact in their local community.