The UK’s first social enterprise fund to help deprived communities restore and reuse empty buildings is to be launched by The Prince’s Regeneration Trust (PRT).
PRT has been awarded a £200,000 Big Lottery Fund grant to help develop the fund. It will enable communities in deprived locations to acquire empty or neglected buildings and turn them into valuable local assets.
Ros Kerslake, chief executive of PRT, said, ‘The Prince’s Regeneration Trust has a strong track record of providing expert advice to communities seeking to unlock the potential of their much loved local buildings.
‘The launch of our social enterprise fund will combine this support with direct financial investment, significantly increasing the likely success of these projects. We are very excited to be creating a strong proposition which will attract new sources of capital into the social investment market.’
The fund will be aimed at investors seeking to use their capital to generate social impact as well as financial return. It will be the first of its kind targeting large and complex regeneration projects in challenging locations.
