Community First Oxfordshire

General information

Ever since 1920, Community First Oxfordshire (ORCC) has been supporting local village life across the county. Nowadays, we provide advice and guidance for almost 300 Village Hall management committees, nearly 70 Community Transport schemes and around 120 Village Shops.

With our help, 16 communities who had lost their last remaining shop have ‘gone it alone’ and are running the business themselves, ensuring that local people still have this important service close to home. As a result of our strong track record in this work, Oxfordshire is regarded nationally as a ‘leading light’, with the county having amongst the highest number of community-run shops in the UK.

In just one of the many Community Transport schemes we help to support, over 3,200 journeys are made by over 40 drivers, for over 500 clients, in a single year. Such schemes are a lifeline for many people and CFO’s highly regarded Directory of Community Transport has become a much used source of information for individuals, communities and statutory services alike.

Over the last 5 years, our Rural Housing staff have successfully tied together all the complex steps needed to make sure that around 400 affordable homes – specifically for local people – have been built in small rural communities. This is important work and helps keep small communities sustainable as well as providing much-needed homes.

And with the help of our two Community Development Workers, around 30 communities (including some of our smaller market towns) are currently busy working on ‘community-led plans’, deciding locally on what their priorities are for the year ahead.

All of these activities are the life-blood of thriving villages; they are what make the difference between dormitory housing and real communities. The amount of community action in Oxfordshire is astonishing, with imaginative, caring, inclusive activities going on in rural communities across the county. In supporting this, everything we do is based on a ‘bottom up’ community development approach - helping communities to help themselves – and making sure they have the skills and knowledge they need to do so. We are also passionate about social inclusion and making sure that the needs of all parts of a community are looked after.

The death of England’s villages has been reliably forecast for generations. But they are still alive and well – and in very many cases they have fuller community lives than ever before. Whatever the future holds for Oxfordshire life, be it the impact of economic pressures or climate change, Community First Oxon will continue its commitment to supporting strong community life, entirely fit for the 21st century.