Wessex Community Assets is a Community Benefit Society, founded 20 years ago by a group of people who realised that access to energy, food and housing, alongside access to materials, finance, land and skills, are essential for building resilient bioregional communities.
For over 20 years WCA has played an important role within the movement for new economic thinking and acting in the UK. WCA weaves together theory, policy and participatory practice in order to develop alternatives to the current dominant neo-liberal model. WCA has been a key organisation in the development of new social investment financial mechanisms including community shares.
WCA also pioneered the development of community land trusts, including building up the UK’s largest enabling service for community-led housing. WCA has provided support to over 150 community economy initiatives, in fields such as local food and farming systems, renewable energy and affordable housing. Over the last 5 years WCA has been successfully working with a number of local farmers in the town of Bridport and the wider area over to field-trial hemp and flax cultivation and processing for its use as an ecological material as part of a bioregional approach to construction and retrofit.
