Community businesses - lessons from Liverpool

One of the reactions to the apparent inability of central government policies to cope with the scale and pace of localized decline has been the growth of local economic development initiatives. Increasingly, these initiatives are seen to be ‘community’ based regardless of the community's ability to support such initiatives. On Merseyside, community based economic development (CBED) strategies have encouraged the development of community businesses. This paper compares the community business development experiences of two very different Merseyside communities and the lessons that can be drawn from these experiences.