Local services for Leeds Business start-ups

This project supports groups helping them set up and run a development trust within the programme target areas and the wider development trust network in Leeds.

Development trusts are engaged in the economic, environmental and social regeneration of a defined area/place. They are independent, aiming for self-sufficiency and not-for-private profit. In addition they are community-based, owned and managed and are actively involved in partnerships/alliances between the community, voluntary, private and public sectors.

Shine is a project from the Harehills Community Interest Company (CIC),  a community development organisation based in Harehills.

Shine is a newly refurbished, high quality enterprise centre offering a range of facilities to the public and the business community. It offers shared and serviced office space, hot desking facilities, the mycatalyst® business hub, conference and meeting rooms. In addition it has a cafe and gym on the premises.

A large proportion of its profits are re-invested into the community. Come on down and take a look at this fantastic building. More details here.

Camberwell is managing catalyst centres at Hillside in Beeston and Shine in Harehills. It is also providing enterprise support to residents in East Leeds. The catalyst centres provide a physical space for new entrepreneurs enbling them to network with each other, share knowledge and inter-trade with each other. They form part of a larger centre which houses other facilities for the residents and businesses e.g. meeting or conference rooms, office space, cafes, crèches and gym.

myCatalyst® is an online and physical community of entrepreneurs. myCatalyst® centres provide affordable, pay as you go, flexible workspace and monthly networking events for individuals and companies to come together and interact. It is part of the local enterprise growth initiative (LEGI) and has over 70 business partners. The aim is to connect you with the right people and services you need to grow and strengthen your business.

Rise is a single storey modular building of some 15,000sq ft. on the site of the current East Leeds Family Learning Centre in Seacroft. The centre provides accommodation for a construction training facility in Seacroft. This offers construction training and taster sessions in bricklaying and joinery to local residents and young people.

Partners involved in this project include Leeds City Council, East and South East Leeds (EASEL) Regeneration Programme, Leeds College of Building, Construction Leeds and the David Young Academy. The project aimes to help get local residents into employment, either through EASEL Regeneration Programme, which is one of the largest housing renewal programmes in the north of England, or the wider construction sector and local residents into self-employment.

This project works with residents in Chapeltown helping them into employment and business through support, advice and training. The Bix Centre on Chapeltown Road offers work space for new entrepreneurs, access to IT equipment and telephones, business services and training room facilities. Two business advisers are available to guide individuals considering starting a business and assist more established businesses access the support that is available to them.

On this page is a template for a business plan which will be useful for anyone who is thinking about starting a business.

The Artsmix* project supports arts and crafts practitioners in Leeds.

The Artsmix* (formerly mosaic) market is a multi-cultural arts and crafts market with exhibition space and is held regularly in Leeds, providing artists with an opportunity to display and sell their own handcrafted work, link with other artists and develop their arts and craft enterprise.

Funding from Sharing the Success has helped the project expand by helping to create an enterprise centre - Factory4 - in Sheepscar which encompasses a fully equipped workshop, display space and storage area for artists to create their work for a Sunday market and other exhibitions.

The project is run by the Community Initiatives Team at Park Lane College Leeds and Artsmix, a community arts organisation.

Details about hiring workshop space can been seen on the poster which can be downloaded here.

Hillside provides meeting and conference space for business and the community, work space units to let as well as a café/restaurant.

Hillside also hosts the Beeston catalyst centre. The catalyst is all about helping local people to turn their business ideas into reality. There is access to hot desks, printers, faxes and other office equipment. Support agencies are also on-site to provide expert advice. A network of entrepreneurs work together and support each other.

Tiger11 is an enterprising community organisation set up to create community benefits for the people of Leeds LS11. They are an Industrial & Provident Society and are building a wide shareholding base amongst local people. They plan to re-invest their surpluses in the local community through the creation of new social enterprises.

Leeds Ahead enables the private sector to contribute towards the social and economic regeneration of Leeds.

Leeds Ahead is a broker and acts as the portal in Leeds for structured and focused business engagement in a wide range of community regeneration activities. Partners across the city register projects with Leeds Ahead which Leeds Ahead then promotes to business. Support from existing businesses is deliberately targeted at communities across the city which face multiple challenges (the LEGI sphere of influence communities).

Focus is placed on areas where businesses can achieve the greatest impact, primarily enterprise, education, employment, environment and community. Businesses are linked by Leeds Ahead to public, voluntary and private sector partners to provide primarily non-cash investment and resources such as time, expertise and opportunity. The aim is to bring business into the heart of disadvantaged communities at every level and so help bring about a long term change in culture, raising aspirations and increasing connectivity, and bring access to economic opportunity.

LEGI partners should use Leeds Ahead to source input from existing businesses to their projects. They can register any requests for business engagement in their projects by contacting the Chief Executive or relevant Area Managers. Contact details are provided below.

If you have an idea for a business or want to trial a new product, this market stall in Kirkgate Market gives you shared space on the stall for 12 weeks free of charge. The stall is available to anyone who lives in Leeds and comes with free business support, specialist retail advice and help from the sales co-ordinator overseeing the project. You will also have access to support from the wider Sharing the Success programme. 

Shared office space and business support is being provided by Barca Leeds and other projects from Sharing the Success, based at the Cubic Business Centre in Bramley.

Space is available free for twelve months for budding entrepreneurs in the area. A supportive network is also part of this enterprise centre helping anyone new cope with their early trading days.

ABDN are helping people find out about working for themselves especially those from the ethnic communities in Leeds. They run a number of free events where you can go to learn about enterprise, being your own boss and self-employment. This includes developing ideas and how to move forward.

ABDN directors and members act as mentors to build confidence with those interested in starting a business.

They provide an opportunity for existing businesses to network at ABDN events and also inspire young people by promoting current role models from Leeds.

There is also be a chance for successful individuals coming through Sharing the Success to be nominated for business awards at the annual ABDN dinner.

ATL will take a proactive approach in raising awareness of enterprise, and providing access and support to diverse groups in West Leeds. The project aims to increase the take up of business support services and help individuals to set up in business, by specifically targeting and proactively promoting services to local communities, including disadvantaged and ethnic minority groups.

ATL will use Catalyst Centres and other local community facilities as venues for the events which will include Conversation Cafes, Enterprise for Women, Enterprise for Over 50s and Business Start Networking.

Leeds Voice supports a network of over 2,000 voluntary, community and faith sector organisations, all of which have excellent reach within Sharing the Success target areas. Leeds Voice has a well accessed website with a community events calendar, e-network for communicating with its members, quarterly newsletter and a base of 69 representatives attending the cities partnerships and networks.

Leeds Voice has a long history of organising good quality events, training, workshops and meetings, and will provide a valuable resource to other LEGI projects.

Leeds City Credit Union has set up a £200k loan fund to provide access to finance exclusively for start up businesses in disadvantaged areas. Loans up to £5,000 are offered at lower rates for individuals unable to access finance through traditional sources like banks etc.

Residents of the LEGI target areas typically have to use non-traditional methods to access finance which can result in unaffordable interest rates being charged, typically over 300%. The credit union aims to provide 90 loans throughout the lifetime of the project.

If you are thinking about starting a business on this page you will find a helpful checklist as well as a business plan and cash flow template.

This £400,000 loan fund is aimed at start-up and existing businesses unable to access high street lenders. Loans will range from £5,000 to £60,000. The added value of BEF is that mentoring support is provided to all businesses given a loan.

As part of the Community Development Finance sector the fund’s social objectives are to support enterprise amongst those who are financially disadvantaged. This will include people with CCJ’s bankruptcy or poor credit ratings. The loans are made on the merits of the business proposition alone.

The mentoring support covers things such as book keeping, marketing, legal advice and intensive business support. The mentoring support is integral to the loans and has proven to deliver a much improved business survival rate. The target is to provide 32 loans over three years.

Contact email: info@befund.org

Construction Leeds is a partnership within the Leeds Initiative, the city’s strategic partnership group. The Building on Business project aims to enable people from within LEGI's target communities to take advantage of opportunities arising from construction work planned to take place in Leeds in the coming years.

Building on Business will provide training and advice to help people start their own business or help them access the training they need to get jobs with contractors by putting developers from the target areas in touch with unemployed people in local communities. The target is to help 60 new start ups and 60 established firms, and get 120 people into employment.

Just less than £1m has been made available through the ‘Sharing the Success’ programme for Education Leeds to employ six Enterprise Ambassadors. The Ambassadors will work with teachers, primarily in thirteen target secondary schools and their primary feeders, to ensure enterprise becomes an integral part of the curriculum.

Funding has also been made available to create an Enterprise Toolkit. The Toolkit is essentially a list of preferred suppliers of a whole range of enterprise learning products/resources. The Enterprise Ambassadors are working with the target schools to buy-in activities, resources and specialist equipment to deliver the enterprise message. They will also encourage schools city wide to use enterprise more widely in the curriculum and ensure that the non-ring fenced DfES funding for enterprise is used to do this.

This project, managed by Leeds City Credit Union, primarily involves advisers going into six target high schools and teaching children about financial management and savings. The pupils will then set up their own credit union and run it as a business, offering support and advice to other pupils in the school, as well as other schools in the community.

The high school credit union will act as a savings club for feeder primary schools. The project therefore not only teaches and gives experience to students about managing a business, but also teaches the wider community about financial management issues.

This project includes a programme of activities to raise awareness of the potential for enterprise among individuals and communities in South Leeds, in particular Middleton and Belle Isle.

Health For All are building on their existing groups and contacts as well as attracting individuals currently not engaged. They are using local media to publicise support available which includes half day events, one to one support and telephone advice. They are also linking prospective entrepreneurs to other projects within Sharing the Success.

The community motivators work in a non-traditional manner to find individuals in the most deprived areas to encourage them to think about starting a business.

They do this in a variety of ways, such as working with established groups in the communities, meeting the people in places that they go to, at times of day that they go, rather than asking people to come to the city centre during office hours, and establishing a viral marketing campaign in target neighbourhoods. 

Once the contact has been made the individuals will be introduced to the local catalyst centre and from there into the wider LEGI programme.

 
Enterprise Rehearsal is a programme that assists residents to think/become more entrepreneurial and see self-employment as a possible route out of welfare dependency. It gives the opportunity to try out a business idea in a secure environment without losing benefits.

The structure of the programme is split into three stages: stage 1 - one to one business support combined with three workshops, stage 2: development of a business plan, 3: test-trading.

The programme is for individuals who are unemployed, in receipt of benefits and who do not fall into the eligibility for New Deal.

Most people are aware of enterprise, they see it everyday; however they fail to make the connection between enterprise and themselves. Winning Moves with Leeds Chamber will help people make that connection and raise their enterprise awareness through the creation and promotion of ‘Champions’ or role models  from local communities who they can connect and identify with. Champions will be embedded in everything we do.

Once you have generated an aspiration Winning Moves will work with you through a series of workshops aimed at developing confidence and belief, and help manage your transition to other support available.

Look out for their workshops in our event section.