Sutton Coop Party has existed for more than 50 years. Originally it covered part of Surrey too, but is now just focused on Sutton Borough. As a result it affiliates to both Sutton & Cheam and Carshalton & Wallington Labour Parties and its members are active in both of them. The local branch holds regular meetings and is focused on promoting cooperatives and mutuals, the local fairtrade group and the creation of assets of community value. It also electorally supports Labour campaigns and under the national agreement both Parties have locally run "Labour and Co-operative" candidates for some elections.  

On these pages you can learn more about our local campaigning within Sutton in support of Co-operative principles. There is an events page and you can also learn more about our local branch team.

Below we list examples of various local organisations that are already Co-operatives or other forms of mutual and also not for profit groups and socially responsible business that, as they develop, may be on a journey towards greater co-operation. 

The focus here is mainly on locally based self-organised groups or activity rather than all communal bodies and collective activity mainly funded or directly provided to people by the local state in the guise of the London Borough of Sutton, Sutton Housing Partnership, Regional/National Housing Associations, NHS SW London ICP, Met Police South BCU, Transport for London or the work of National or International Charities and NGO's whose prime focus is not Sutton. 

In setting out the information below the local Party is merely reporting on the current provision and is not making any specific judgment on the current boundary between some community owned and local or national state owned organisations. In the meantime all of them have forms of democracy and membership engagement so we encourage people to get involved with them to encourage their journey to greater co-operation.

This directory is not meant to be comprehensive but aims to encourage people to explore the very wide range of co-operative, mutual and not for profit local community organisations further to see if there are spaces to create new ones. Many of the organisations operate in competitive markets and are part of the substantial UK Co-operative Economy. The directory might also be the basis for a wider community mapping project for bringing together various public bodies, not for profits and profit driven businesses as part of a Community Wealth Building project locally. 

To help further research a full list of local registered mutual organisations is at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Mutual's Public Register here and type in local areas (eg Sutton, Cheam, Belmont, Worcester Park, St Helier, Carshalton, Wallington, Beddington, Roundshaw) to find both current and de-registered local mutual organisations.

This Directory is dedicated to the memory of our late member Alistair Cruickshank who made very helpful suggestions when it was being developed.

Our initial local list covering a wide range of activity areas is below:

Retail/Trade/Markets

• Co-operative Group retail stores in Carshalton, Carshalton Beeches and Roundshaw. They are a very large national organisation with 4.4 million active members. Members can get involved with running it, attend its live events and other activities, build their skills through its education and training and also be part of its engagement with the wider local community where it has uniquely recruited over 1,000 Member Pioneers to do work in the local community. The Co-operative Group membership donate to local causes through its Local Community Fund and in Sutton it is currently focused on organisations associated with Royal Marsden Hospital (see below) cancer services including Maggie's Centre, Look Good Feel Better, and Clowns in the Sky Adopt a Trolley. The Co-operative Group's 2023 AGM was shown live here and the Members Council are listed here. As the organisation has changed its democratic structures in response to changing forms of participation, the Co-op Party itself often nowadays plays a key role in bringing Co-operative Group members together at a regional and local level to build local networks of co-operation. 

• A Welcome Carshalton store in Middleton Circle on St Helier which is a franchise of the Southern Co-operative. They are a large regional organisation with over 172,000 members. Members can get involved in running it and attend its events. They are very active in the communities they serve, Their 2023 AGM is here.

• A Nisa store at Wrythe Green. This brand and groceries wholesaler is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Co-operative Group above. They run a charity that helps independently run local stores to add value to their local community. 

• Costcutter are stores owned by independent private retailers in Worcester Park, Sutton, Sutton Common Road, Rosehill on St Helier, Carshalton, Carshalton on the Hill, Middleton Circle on St Helier, and Hackbridge but have a partnership with the Co-operative Group who is their main supplier so they stock many co-operative produced products.

• There are Waitrose employee owned stores in Cheam and Worcester Park which are part of the employee owned John Lewis Partnership.

• Carshalton Lavender CIC a not-for-profit social enterprise, setup as a Local Community Interest Company (CIC). 

• Wallington Farmers Market is run by Ecolocal - see below.

• Important to note that many local High Streets have "charity shops" belonging to many national charities which in the past were seen as a sign of decline but which can now be reframed as the expansion of the not for profit "third sector" there as High Streets become more "relational" through a wide range of service provision as more goods are purchased online.

Services

• Co-operative Funeralcare homes in Sutton, Rosehill, North Cheam and Wallington. They are part of the Co-operative Group above.

• Some past co-operative run services such as Insurance, Travel and Energy do not now have local geographical branches and are provided online or via the phone. There are also new services that never planned to operate from local branches. More on that in the next section. 

Finance

• Nationwide Building Society is a mutual that has branches in Sutton, Worcester Park and Wallington. They are a very large national organisation with 16 million members who get involved and have their say, attend their events, and support social investment in local communities. Their 2023 AGM is detailed here.

• Yorkshire Building Society is a mutual that has a branch in Sutton (formerly of the Chelsea Building Society which merged with them). They are a very large national organisation with 3 million members who get involved and have their say, and the society encourages volunteering and has a charitable foundation, Their 2023 AGM is here.

• Of the other 5 big building society mutuals, the Skipton Building Society has a branch in Croydon and the Leeds Building Society a branch in Epsom both of which may be likely to have some Sutton members.

• Croydon, Merton and Sutton Credit Union is our local Credit Union and Merton Council now gives all Year 7 pupils £20 to start an account there 

Education and Childcare

• Primary level education by 8 local schools in: Sutton Education Trust.

• Local childcare co-operative: Little Pioneers Nursery which is part of the Midcounties Co-operative which has a wide range of democratic structures and a lot of community activity in the West Midlands, South West, and South East regions it primarily serves.

• The Fostercare Charity was the Fostercare Co-operative but transitioned to charity status in October 2023 in order to access more funding streams.

• Sutton and Wallington Workers Educational Association (WEA) Branch is the local branch of this national charity.

• At a National Level the Co-operative Group - see above - is itself a sponsor of the Coop Academies Trust which is a group of over 30 schools in the North of England.

Health and Social Care

• The Royal Marsden Hospital is an NHS Foundation Trust where members elect a Board of Governors who hold the Directors of the Hospital to account.

• Sutton Primary Care Networks is the collaborative vehicle for the four Sutton PCNs and the former Sutton GP Federation working together as a single entity. it is a Community Interest Company aiming to reinvest surpluses back into general practice and primary care. The GP practices have local Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) which embody co-operative principles and values, and bring together groups of service-users and medical practitioners to discuss, evaluate and make suggestions of how local GP services can be improved.

• CSH Surrey is just over the border and is an employee-owned, not-for-profit NHS community healthcare provider for mid Surrey including neighbouring Epsom.

• Your Healthcare is a not for profit social enterprise, delivering health and social care community services for residents in Kingston

• Banstead, Carshalton and District Housing Society is a Community Benefit Society providing residential care for the elderly

• Oaks Way (South Carshalton) Senior Centre. A charity providing day care for the elderly. Our former member Claire Shearer volunteered there for many years.

Housing

• Sutton Housing Society - a locally rooted Housing Association

Criminal Justice and Legal

• South West London Law Centre is a registered charity with offices in Croydon, Merton and Wandsworth but covers Sutton as well as Kingston and Richmond too.

Environmental Awareness

• Local Community Run Charity EcoLocal organise a large range of environmentally sustainable activities and also run the annual Carshalton Eco Fair and Carshalton Frost Fair.

Transport

• Sutton Community Transport. A charity to help combat social isolation.

International Fairtrade

• A local Fairtrade in Sutton Community Group which has produced a guide to all the Supermarkets that stock Fairtrade Goods which can be read here. 

Local Food Production

• Sutton Allotments which people can apply for a plot to run themselves. People can develop their skills at Carshalton Community Allotment run by Ecolocal - see above.

• Local CIC Sutton Community Farm. In 2023 they ran a successful Crowd Funder appeal to raise £60,845 (over £10,000 above their target) to continue operating.

Culture, Sport and Leisure

• The Sound Lounge music venue is a not for profit CIC. They recently successfully sought Crowd Funder support to keep the venue going in a difficult economic climate and raised £46,560 - over £10,000 above their target. They also run the now annual Folk in the Park Festival.

• There is a Ruskin Road Community Cinema, Carshalton.

• Arts Network Sutton is a membership organisation with Trustees

• Sutton Sports Village and Sutton Tennis Academy (formerly the Junior Tennis Centre) is run by Greenwich Leisure Ltd a charitable social enterprise and worker's co-operative

• Sutton United Supporters Trust is an Industrial and Provident Society and a minority shareholder in Sutton United Football Club.

• The Hope Pub, Carshalton is a community owned pub with restricted shareholding rights so no one can own more than 24% of it. A late member of our local branch, Clive Poge, chaired its board.

Community

• Community Action Sutton is a membership based organisation with Trustees. They maintain a directory of "third sector" organisations here.

• Volunteer Centre Sutton is an independent charitable trust.

• Sutton Women's Centre is a not for profit charitable trust.

• The Thomas Wall Centre is a charitable trust.

• BedZed Pavillion is a local community facility run by housing and regeneration charitable trust Communities First whose head office it also is.

• Sutton African & Caribbean Cultural Organisation (SACCO) is a registered charity which aims to help people of African and Caribbean heritage of all ages to participate more fully in the local community.

• Sutton Nightwatch. A charity helping the local homeless.

• Refugee and Migrant Network Sutton. A charity supporting refugees and migrants.

• A number of Social Clubs and Royal British Legion Clubs in Worcester Park, Cheam, Sutton and Carshalton are Industrial and Provident Societies and can be found listed on the Co-operatives UK Directory here and also at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Mutual's Public Register here.

Up until the early 2000's many services were provided from geographical branches - see more on the history of this below. However with the rise of the internet some co-operative run services have migrated to online or phone based operation without locally based branches. 

At the same time some non retail Co-operative services like Roadside Assistance where the Automobile Association was a mutual have demutualised & no other mutual has developed in it's stead.

Nevertheless, the development of digital technology has also created new services entirely or enabled Co-op's to be established in markets they had previously not competed in.

The following such co-operative services are used by our local members.

Services Nowadays Provided Online

• Co-op Insurance. They are part of the Co-operative Group above 

• Your Co-op Travel. They are part of the Midcounties Co-op above.

• Your Co-op Energy. Run in partnership with Octopus Energy. They are part of the Midcounties Co-op above.

New Services Provided Online

• Co-op Legal Services. Established in 2006 in anticipation of the Legal Services Act 2007 which liberalised the market and expanded competition for legal services in England and Wales. They are part of the Co-operative Group above

• Your Co-op Mobile. Established in 1998 as Social Economy Telecommunications Co-operative (SETCO), then becoming the Phone Co-op from 1999 to 2018. They are now part of the Midcounties Co-op above. They are well known for offering the Fairphone ethically sourced and sustainable mobile phone.

• Your Co-op Broadband. Established in 2014 with the purchase of a profit-driven company's broadband business. They are part of the Midcounties Co-op above.

The local Co-op Party has always been a strong supporter of Fairtrade in the borough and our members are active in Sutton Fairtrade Community Group. The Group are researching current availability of Fairtrade products in the borough and have produced a guide to the local places that sell Fairtrade produce which can be read here.

If you want to start a co-operative an old but still useful guide is here. There is full legal and financial information from Co-operatives UK here. 

A key issue for co-operatives to address is start up and sustainability capital and Coop Finance can help with loans as well as use of Crowd Funders to sustain a business. Examples of this are in our directory above. Organisations like Stir to Action also help with the infrastructure of co-operative development by training up those advising new co-ops. Other advice for when a business gets established is here and capital markets for Coops is here.

With the rise of the internet and social media there is also lots of information on how to set up a modern online digital "platform co-operative" here and here. Internet governance is an important issue nowadays in an era of complex metagovernance and like the Rochdale Co-operative Pioneers in the 19th century provides an opportunity to explore new ways of doing things and a wider range of democratic and participatory experiments. A useful site if you are setting up something online is the Community Rule website which is a governance toolkit for developing great online communities, and a joint project of the University of Colorado and Metagov - a laboratory for digital governance which build tools, practices, and communities for self-governance. Digital platforms will also likely in future utilise Artificial Intelligence (AI) so projects such as the Co-operative AI Foundation examine how online agents act in a Co-operative manner that we as humans would recognise.

Our local members are active in a number of co-operatives so can help point you to many other sources of advice.

Love It? List It! is the Co-operative Party’s campaign to list Assets of Community Value (ACV). These are the places people love that they want to preserve for the community’s use in the years to come. 

After the demutualisation of many building societies, the privatisation of services and selling off or change of use of many much loved places from community centres and allotments to local pubs, the loss of assets that make a community special has made many feel they do not have any form of local control any more and thus they can fall prey to far right populist political narratives. 

The Co-op Party provides useful four steps guidance, plus useful tips for an ACV mapping exercise.

Locally in Sutton you can apply to register an application here and the current list of applications are here. A guide to the Localism Act 2011 is here and the Assets of Community Value (England) Regulations 2012 are here.

Our members along with local Labour Party members have been involved in such processes and can point you to further sources of advice.

ACV listing is just the first step. You can also sign up to support the Co-op Party's Building Local Ownership Campaign. This calls on the Government to create a UK-wide Community Right to Buy, giving local community groups a right to buy assets of community value when they come up for sale – and increase the support and funding available to help them do it.