We have  had a particular focus this year on the development of the local social enterprise sector.  Social enterprises provide supported employment opportunities that can act as a ‘stepping stone’ into the world of work, supporting and releasing individual potential and thereby playing a vital role in Rhyl City Strategy’s ambition of increasing local employment rates.  We have supported the development of Rhyl’s social enterprise sector by providing seedcorn funding and support to a number of new and innovative social enterprises.

ST ASAPH FARM

Rhyl City Strategy is supporting a group of partners to realise an ambitious project to develop a piece of farmland on the outskirts of Rhyl. The ‘growing project’ provides a range of opportunities in relation to employment related activity and learning, principally in the field of horticulture/agriculture, but also in the connected fields of retail and marketing.  The project sits at the heart of a larger ambition to develop a ‘growing’ social enterprise and farm shop. 

In the first phase of the project, Criminal Justice Intervention Wales (CJIW) has worked with groups of learners to plant a one acre site with potatoes, which will be lifted and sold in summer 2010.  Allotment plots have also been created to grow vegetables, herbs and soft fruit.  SOVA has supported volunteers from the Dewi Sant Centre to establish a new bee colony on a prepared plot at the farm, screened off from the rest of the site by willow and beech fencing that has been prepared by participants on CJIW’s ‘Thatching’ project.  The beekeepers have received training in apiculture, and in time will be branding and selling the honey as part of SOVA’s Community Harvest project.

With the early development of the site having captured the imagination of local partners, there is significant potential for scaling up the project as further links are made and as ideas take hold. The partners currently include CJIW, SOVA, North Wales Probation, Denbighshire Countryside Services, North Wales Women’s Centre, Rhyl City Strategy and the site owner.  The project has engaged over 25 volunteers and participants in its first phase, as well as employing a number of people through the Future Jobs Fund programme.

WALK WITH HAWKS

The Coastal Hawks Project has established a new social enterprise that uses hawks to deter seagulls and pigeons from public areas such as Rhyl town centre and other areas along the coast.  The enterprise offers a humane solution to pest control, and maximises its appeal to tourists by using medieval costumes as part of the display.  Through our Careers Ladder programme, Rhyl City Strategy has provided opportunities for three participants to attend courses at an established falconry centre in Welshpool to develop skills and gain qualifications in the use of raptors in pest control.  The project has subsequently employed two of these participants as bird handlers through the Future Jobs Fund.    The project is working with local authorities and town councils to promote its product, and to seek ways of making sure it can be sustainable in the long term.

TRAINING RESTAURANT FOR RHYL

Rhyl City Strategy is currently working with partners to develop a training restaurant/cafe in a prime location in Rhyl that will be a destination venue for locals and tourists.  The restaurant will operate as a social enterprise, and will link with the farm to buy produce for use at the facility.

The Training Restaurant will provide opportunities for up to 85 unemployed and economically inactive individuals annually from Rhyl and the surrounding area to access quality skills training and work experience in a supported working environment. The project will offer an exciting range of training opportunities including basic food hygiene and taster courses, pre-employment vocational training courses and longer term supported employment through the Intermediate Labour Market programme. Learners and employees at the facility will be provided with ongoing support to find permanent employment or to progress onto mainstream training programmes. 

Rhyl City Strategy will be leasing a restaurant premises at East Parade, Rhyl from Denbighshire County Council, and leading youth charity Rathbone Cymru has been appointed as the delivery partner for the project.  Work will be taking place to refurbish the building during autumn 2010, and it is hoped the facility will be open by Christmas 2010.