Every piece, year by year
Archive
Everything on Closemouth, oldest to newest.
Each piece describes things as they stood on the day it is dated, so a grant scheme, a council budget or a shop’s opening hours may since have changed.
For a narrower list, the three sections are Community enterprise, Public services and policy and Culture and books.
2026
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Community asset transfer: taking over the hall, the pitch or the old schoolSince 2017 a community group in Scotland can ask almost any public body for a building it wants to run, and the answer has to be yes unless there are reasonable grounds for no.Public services and policy
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The community right to buy, twenty years onScotland's 2003 land reform law gave rural communities first refusal on land around them. The right now reaches every part of Scotland, and it has acquired several siblings.Community enterprise
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When the wind farm pays the villageA commercial wind farm on the hill usually comes with an annual payment to the places around it. A turbine the community owns earns differently, and the two are often confused.Community enterprise
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The shop tab, the notebook and the credit line that refillsA shop that lets regulars pay on payday is lending on trust, and the debt has a day it ends. A credit line that refills keeps the trust and drops the day.Community enterprise
2020
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Walking and cycling to school after lockdownLockdown has broken the school-run routine. That makes it a rare chance to change how children get to school.Public services and policy
2019
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Social enterprise and wellbeing in communitiesPublic health reform says health is made in communities. Much of that work is already done by small local enterprises.Community enterprise
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Social enterprise case studiesScotland has about 5,600 social enterprises. Most are small and local, and they come in more shapes than the word suggests. A few examples, grouped by the way they work.Community enterprise
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Community food enterprisesFood is one of the fastest growing fields of social enterprise in Scotland. Much of it began as a response to hunger, and the best of it is trying to become something more lasting than a food bank.Community enterprise
2018
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Community bonds and share offersA new £100,000 bond for small social enterprise loans is a good moment to set out how community finance works, and what it does not protect.Community enterprise
2017
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Book review: Poverty Safari by Darren McGarveyA rapper from Pollok writes about growing up poor, getting sober and the people paid to speak for places like his.Culture and books
2016
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The Italian region where co-ops produce a third of its GDPThe claim that co-operatives produce a third of the region's output is repeated everywhere. The laws and habits behind the sector are more interesting than the number.Public services and policy
2015
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The case for cuts: why the austerity argument held onFive years after the coalition's first budget, the economists have mostly moved on from the case for fast deficit reduction. British politics has not. The evidence, and the reasons it has made so little difference.Public services and policy
2012
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Five Glasgow advice offices to closeGlasgow's switch from grants to contracts leaves five bureaux in the city's poorest areas facing closure at the end of March.Public services and policy
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The Code of Social Enterprise in ScotlandA definition that everyone can use ends up meaning very little. In 2012 Scotland's social enterprises wrote down, in a page and a half, the test they apply to each other.Community enterprise
2011
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True story of man behind The CorriesThe song is sung at Murrayfield and Hampden, and now it plays on the Commonwealth podium. The man who wrote it has been dead for more than twenty years, and he is less well known than his tune.Culture and books
2010
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Shops axed...so we're locals' lifelineWhen the last shop in a neighbourhood shuts, the people who live there can wait for the market to come back or open one themselves. In the East End of Glasgow this autumn, they did not wait.Community enterprise