Community Purchase Plan

The George at Alstonefield Community Benefit Society Ltd plan to raise funds in excess of £500,000 by a variety of schemes:

1. Share Offer.   Our share offer has the  ambitious aim of persuading every resident in the community to become a share holder.  We are offering one £50 purchase of £1x50 shares per      person  but very importantly, we are also appealing to the much larger community outside of the parish to people who are familiar with The George to also become shareholders. The plan is to have a very large number of shareholders.

2.    Loans.    This will form the largest part of our fund raising effort.  We are seeking repayable loans between £1000 and £25,000 from the community. It is the intension that loans will bear interest       but this is not guaranteed. Repayable in the future once the pub is  both profitable and generating a steady rental income. This method was used very successfully by the community to  fund our village hall extension.

3.     Grant Funding.   Post election we are still waiting to see if the previous governments Community Ownership Fund will still to be available for us to apply for support.  In some cases in the UK  this has been as much as £250,000.  We would need to demonstrate both a realistic and viable business plan of a significant commitment from the community.  We will also be seeking  grants from local authorities, organisations and businesses.

4.     Crowd Funding.   Appealing to the wider community again we will seek donations of any size to assist us raise the required funding.  

Should the plan to purchase the pub ultimately fail then all money raised through the share offer, loans and donations  (where the donor is known), would be returned. Any excess monies received would then be distributed to charity. Please see our Society Downloads section for the business plan, application forms and a Q&A section.