On a grey morning in Bristol, a child waves from a bridge as a ferry slides across the harbour. It’s not just any ferry — it’s one owned and operated by the community.

“This is a powerful thing,” said Roshin Tobin-Brooke, co-director of Bristol Community Ferry Boats. “Everything we make goes back into providing this service.”

That includes paying 40 local employees — among them teachers, tattoo artists and carpenters — a living wage. The nonprofit ferry company, revived by nearly 900 shareholders after a private firm collapsed in 2012, now brings around 50,000 people to the harbour each year. Some ride for pleasure, others for free. And some are commuters starting their day with water views instead of traffic jams.

As skipper Steve Pope put it: “There’s something about being on the water that relaxes people. Commuters actually talk to each other.”

It’s one small part of a growing national movement. Across the UK, as public funding shrinks and major retailers pull out of town centres, communities are stepping up — running ferries, buying pubs, transforming derelict shops and reviving community centres. Their projects may look modest, but the collective effect is reshaping the public realm.

Between 2015 and 2022, the number of community-run businesses in England doubled to over 11,000, according to think tank Power to Change. And they’re not limited to transport and pubs. Some repurpose empty department stores into “everything under one roof” hubs for health, art and social care. Others power entire neighbourhoods with renewable energy.

The drivers vary — from frustration with state neglect to a desire for stronger local ties — but the message is clear: communities aren’t waiting for someone else to fix things.

Saving Assets, Building Belonging

In Southend, a former department store now houses a dementia daycare, job skills programmes, a foot clinic, a charity shop, and even diabetes screening rooms. General manager Sarah Wilson calls it “very intergenerational… If the appointments are running behind, people can sit and have a coffee. It’s a lovely environment.”

In South London, fly-tippers once dumped rubbish next to train tracks. Today that strip of land is a learning garden for schoolkids, thanks to residents who turned it into the Crofton Park Railway Garden. Similar stories are unfolding across faded high streets and ghostly town centres, where community takeovers are giving buildings and people new purpose.

Even traditional boozers are being reinvented. More than 200 pubs across the UK have been rescued by locals. Now, they host refugee support groups, baby clubs and live gigs.

According to Jessica Craig, policy manager at Power to Change, these businesses are “helping shape a more resilient, more diverse, mixed-use high street.”

But It Takes Money — And Policy

One of the biggest barriers for communities is funding. Acquiring land and buildings is rarely cheap, and ownership structures can be murky.

In Scotland, the government-backed Land Fund has helped bridge that gap with grants of up to £1 million. That support enabled Take A Bow, a youth-focused arts charity in Kilmarnock, to buy and reopen the area’s only community centre after the local authority could no longer afford it.

“It’s started to thrive again,” said chair John McManus. “Saving it has been really vital to our community.”

Until last year, the UK-wide Community Ownership Fund offered similar support. It helped secure assets like the abandoned Victorian arcade in Dewsbury — “a town even McDonald’s abandoned,” said Chris Hill, co-founder of the group now transforming it into a community-run events space.

But the fund shut down in 2024. “It was a hell of a loss,” said Hill.

There are signs of new political interest. The Labour government’s Pride in Place scheme, launched in 2025, gives residents a say in how funds are spent in their neighbourhoods. This week, it was expanded to 40 new areas, each with up to £20 million to invest in high streets, green space or community infrastructure.

And a bill currently moving through parliament — the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill — could give communities first refusal when local assets are put up for sale, with a 12-month window to raise funds. It would also introduce new neighbourhood-level governance structures to improve collaboration between local authorities and residents.

“It’s the first time in a long time that we’ve had ‘community’ mentioned in a government bill,” said Craig. “It feels like a helpful shift. It just needs to be backed up with investment in community ownership.”

A Turbine as a Symbol

Perhaps the clearest symbol of what’s possible when communities are empowered stands just outside Bristol — a towering wind turbine owned by Ambition Community Energy. Built in the northwest neighbourhood of Lawrence Weston, it’s England’s largest onshore turbine and generates up to £300,000 worth of electricity each month.

The profits fund poverty reduction projects. The energy helps fight climate change. And for residents like Mark Pepper, who leads the group that built it, it’s proof that community spirit, if supported, can generate far more than power.

“It has a positive effect on the environment and helps to address social injustice,” he said. “It’s win-win.”