Forty years ago, a small group of students and university dropouts living rough had a novel idea. What if they pooled meagre savings and jobless benefits for a modest terrace house, rather than rent a run-down flat?
They raised a deposit for a £3,200 mortgage on a neglected two-bedroom property in the Victorian terraces of west Hull, running down to the quayside of a once-thriving fishing port, from where boats used to trawl the north Atlantic.
Their enthusiasm for punk bands belied a determination to work the system rather than fight the class war in a city evoked by the late poet and University of Hull librarian Philip Larkin: “Spires and cranes … ships up streets.”
So began the ultimate counter-revolution for a group, driven by what Martin Newman, a founder, called “green, practical anarchism”. After largely teaching themselves bricklaying, joinery and plumbing, they asked a simple question: in solving their own accommodation crisis, why not help others sleeping rough?
A workers’ cooperative was thus born as Giroscope – fittingly named after the ubiquitous giro benefit cheques of the high unemployment 1980s. Pooling these partly funded their first acquisition and laid the foundations for what is now a multimillion-pound charitable social enterprise, headed by the tireless Newman.
Their tentative steps into property development soon became a campaign for more housing renewal in a long-neglected inner-city area in a country with some of the oldest housing stock in Europe: more than a third of English homes, for instance, are well over 80 years old.
But the group’s inspiration emerged from the unlikeliest ideology: Thatcherism. Deregulation of the mortgage market early in the late PM’s premiership led to looser borrowing, with banks giving loans alongside building societies. “She was encouraging people to make money, so we hatched this plan to organise and achieve rather than bring down capitalism first,” says Newman, pragmatic punk turned social property developer. “Credit became easy. Lots of funny money – sort of like the wild west. Plenty of brokers, ‘Jack the lads’, happy to fill in a form on our behalf. So why not work the system?”
Soon their “borrow to rebuild and renew” philosophy had gained credibility with the Co-op bank and other lenders – and their property portfolio grew. A big break came after 2012 when they were given £1m from the coalition government’s short-lived empty homes community grant programme – and, on the back of that, they borrowed £1.2m to buy and renew scores of repossessed properties. Newman says: “A bit of quality in the streets began to show people who’d long felt forgotten that someone did care, that we’re in this for the long haul.”
By judiciously borrowing, Giroscope now has assets of at least £10m, 23 staff – housing professionals, building specialists, case workers – and a wide-ranging property portfolio, underpinned by 140 properties housing 350 people, from terrace houses to small blocks of flats. It now embraces two centres for small businesses, a work training and construction arm delivering scores of new jobs, shops for rent, a vegetable smallholding for teaching gardening skills, a bike repair and sale business, and PC and laptop repair outlet.
Most importantly, it has concrete plans – literally – to continue growing. A newly opened community centre and enterprise hub in a converted 19th-century church is its latest – and largest – project so far. Built in 1870, the creamy white and red brick of St Matthew’s, south-facing roof covered in solar panels, closed in 2013. Subsequently offered for sale by the Church of England, and lying empty for five years, Giroscope paid next-to-nothing for a church with the tallest steeple in Philip Larkin’s Hull of spires. At a restoration cost of £1m, it has now become an illuminated beacon for the charity, prominent on the skyline.
Inside the centre, plans for a winter garden and events space in the former West Park Palace cinema nearby underline its ambition. Scaffolding around the building will go up next week, as a prelude to a renewal programme costing at least £1.2m. Funding, it hopes, just might be in place for Giroscope’s forthcoming 40th birthday.
Looking back, Rob Amesbury, the only other active founder of the original cooperative, who helps manage the charity’s housing portfolio, can only reflect on the “run-down neighbourhood” they encountered in the mid-1980s – and its transformation today. He says: “You could feel it going downhill – houses in a poor condition, a lot of elderly people, buy-to-let landlords moving in trying to make a killing … now it’s much more settled.”
Twenty years’ ago, when the Guardian last visited Giroscope, the area was in high demand by property investors from the UK and Ireland. Many houses were subsequently repossessed, providing Giroscope with a cut-price market to expand further – and they still deliver a steady stream for renewal as some buy-to-let investors cut their losses and leave in the face of restrictions from new decent homes standards under renters’ reform legislation.
In his 27 years renting a grocery store in Welsted Street from Giroscope, Richard Simms has seen a vast improvement in the area. He says: “It was earmarked for demolition [as part of one failed government initiative]: landlords from far away were buying up hoping for compensation and then, as they left, the houses were bricked up.” With help from the local council, many have been renewed and acquired by Giroscope.
It has now morphed into an effective social agency: the DWP even refers jobless clients to its skill training programmes. Sarah Pearson, a former teacher and HR professional, who heads the charity’s enterprise and employability team, guides about 50 volunteers each week through six areas of work, from construction skills to catering and gardening. She says: “While some people have complex, long-term problems, many are supported for two or so months to get basic qualifications for jobs.” One client, who had 87 apprenticeship rejections, recently found work in a factory. “He had given up all hope of finding a job,” says Pearson.
Giroscope’s business plan underlines a commitment to grow further: buying old houses for conversion into carbon-efficient homes, building new ones, and expanding to create jobs, and running neighbourhood services. Newman says: “You just can’t rock up and tackle deep-seated issues involving people – jobs, debt advice, health, social problems – in a few years. That’s where government schemes have failed. You’ve got to be in it for the long term.”
