What Is the Middleton Co-operative Town Project and How Is It Reshaping Greater Manchester?

Middleton is a post-industrial town in the M24 postcode area of Greater Manchester, administered by Rochdale Borough Council. It sits within the borough that gave birth to the global co-operative movement in 1844, when the Rochdale Pioneers established the world’s first modern consumer co-operative. Today, Middleton is the location of one of England’s most ambitious community-led economic experiments: the Middleton co-operative town project, a structured effort to transfer ownership and decision-making over local services, housing, energy, and culture back to residents.

What Is Middleton Co-operating and How Did the Project Start?

Middleton Co-operating is a multi-stakeholder co-operative organisation founded in Middleton, Greater Manchester, to transform the local economy through community ownership. Founded by lifelong Middletonian Kallum Nolan, it launched formally after 2018 with a mission to build Greater Manchester’s first co-operative town.

Kallum Nolan was elected as a local councillor in 2018 on a platform addressing Middleton’s economic decline, including empty buildings, derelict historical structures, and absentee ownership of major assets. One such asset is Warwick Mill, a five-storey, 250,000 square-foot structure owned by an overseas conglomerate that has remained unused for years.

This pattern of non-local ownership across Middleton’s economy became the catalyst for a broader question: what if co-operative principles, proven in Rochdale, were applied across the whole town? That question led directly to the creation of Middleton Co-operating. In 2022, the organisation received £100,000 in funding from Lankelly Chase, a grant-making body, enabling it to hire its first staff member. Development lead Veronika Susedkova joined to direct the organisation’s growing portfolio of community circles and partnerships.

What Is the Foundational Economy Model That Drives This Project?

The foundational economy is the set of everyday goods and services that people depend on regardless of income: housing, energy, food, transport, childcare, and social care. Middleton Co-operating uses this model to identify which sectors of local life require community ownership and democratic control.

Through a co-design process involving residents, Middleton Co-operating identified 14 sectors that form the backbone of the town’s foundational economy. Each sector is called a “circle of work.” Of these 14 circles, energy, housing, digital, and arts have active projects. Social care, advice, and childcare contain emerging projects. The remaining areas, including personal banking, transport, repair and recycling, green space, food, and mental health, are at the exploration stage.

The foundational economy concept holds that in Middleton, many of the services residents rely on daily are owned and controlled by organisations based outside the town, which reduces accountability to local people. Middleton Co-operating’s response is to build community-led alternatives in each of these foundational sectors, gradually shifting ownership and benefit back to residents.

What Are the Active Project Circles Currently Operating in Middleton?

Middleton Co-operating currently runs active projects in energy, housing, digital, and arts. Each circle operates through a sociocratic decision-making model, where authority is distributed across consent-based groups rather than concentrated in a single leadership structure.

Middleton Community Energy is a community-owned energy group working to generate local renewable power. It has conducted feasibility studies for a wind turbine on a local secondary school and a solar array at Rochdale Hospice, supported by funding from Community Energy England. The group is currently working with local schools, community-owned buildings, and grassroots organisations to develop solar and wind installations or grid access to local clean energy.

In housing, Middleton Tenants Union works with private and social tenants in unsafe, unhealthy, or insecure housing situations to secure justice and compensation. The union operates alongside the Greater Manchester Tenants Union to challenge profit-driven social housing management. The arts circle established Art House Middleton, a community art space run by locally sourced cultural pioneers, funded in part through a partnership with the Arts Council-funded Rochdale Culture Co-op. The digital circle supports community access to online infrastructure, including a project using UK Shared Prosperity Fund money to provide free wi-fi access in public areas.

What Is the Middleton Mayoral Development Corporation and Why Does It Matter?

The Middleton Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC) is a statutory regeneration body established under the devolved powers of Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham. Officially launched in November 2025, the MDC is designed to deliver large-scale investment, planning, and physical development across a defined area of Middleton.

Mayoral Development Corporations are statutory bodies set up by metro mayors in England to drive transformation in specific geographical areas. They attract investment, unlock brownfield land, and coordinate planning decisions across public and private partners. The Middleton MDC covers up to 200 acres of the town centre, building on Rochdale Council’s 2022 Middleton Masterplan. Core infrastructure goals include extending the Greater Manchester Metrolink tram network to Middleton, building high-quality homes on brownfield plots, creating new business premises, and improving public areas, roads, and footpaths.

The model draws on the Stockport MDC, which supported thousands of new homes, 170,000 square feet of office space at Stockport Exchange, and the conversion of a former cotton mill into a mixed-use development. A budget of £600,000 was allocated to initiate the Middleton MDC’s planning process. The MDC is structurally connected to the wider Atom Valley project, which is projected to generate more than 20,000 jobs and deliver a £1 billion economic boost to the Rochdale and Bury areas.

Who Leads the Middleton Co-operative Town Project and MDC?

Steve Coogan, actor and writer born and raised in Middleton, and Rose Marley, CEO of Co-operatives UK, serve as co-chairs of the Middleton MDC. Mark Fraser, a Middleton resident and volunteer, leads the day-to-day work of Middleton Co-operating.

Steve Coogan was announced as MDC co-chair designate during the launch of the Greater Manchester Strategy 2025-2035, a regional blueprint for 2.9 million residents developed under Mayor Andy Burnham. Coogan’s involvement began through the Lighthouse Project, a Middleton-based charity providing a one-stop support service for residents in financial, psychological, or health difficulty. He describes local, community-led initiatives as a direct response to the failure of national political structures to improve ordinary people’s lives.

Rose Marley, whose organisation Co-operatives UK represents and develops the co-operative sector across the United Kingdom, co-chairs the MDC with a specific mandate to embed co-operative principles into the regeneration process. Rochdale Borough Council leader Neil Emmott has publicly committed to ensuring the MDC is delivered in line with residents’ needs and aspirations. The project also draws on broader support from Councillor Bev Craig, Manchester’s council leader, and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

How Does the Co-operative Model Address the Extractive Economy in Middleton?

The extractive economy describes a pattern where local economic activity generates profit and value that leaves the community rather than recirculating within it. In Middleton, four major assets are owned by overseas entities: the Arndale centre by a British Virgin Islands company, Warwick Mill by a Chinese conglomerate, McBrides by a Luxembourg-based owner, and Vitafoam by a US company.

Mark Fraser, head of Middleton Co-operating, identified these four cases of absentee ownership as evidence of Middleton’s extractive economic structure. The result is that the financial returns from local economic activity flow outward rather than supporting local jobs, wages, or infrastructure. Co-operative businesses, by design, distribute ownership and returns among members, who are the workers, consumers, or community participants they serve.

Middleton Co-operating’s non-extractive approach is built on the principle that the value generated by local energy, housing, and services should stay within the community. This model directly challenges the conventional development approach, where private developers acquire land, build infrastructure, and extract profit before moving to the next location. The Middleton MDC is designed to operate on co-operative principles with a board made up of residents, businesses, and public leaders making decisions collectively, ensuring that the benefit of major investment is distributed across the community rather than captured by external investors.

What Does the Middleton Co-operative Town Project Mean for Community Regeneration in England?

The Middleton co-operative town project represents a replicable model for post-industrial towns in England where market failure, absentee ownership, and underfunded public services have prevented meaningful regeneration. It integrates statutory planning powers with grassroots co-operative organisation.

England has approximately 269 towns classified as “left behind” by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for “Left Behind” Neighbourhoods, defined by low civic infrastructure investment, high deprivation, and weak local economies. Middleton shares characteristics with this group, including a rising private rental market, reduced social housing through Right to Buy, and underused commercial properties. The Middleton model combines two mechanisms that previous regeneration efforts have kept separate: statutory MDC powers, which can unlock land and attract capital, and community co-operative organisation, which builds local ownership capacity and ensures residents benefit materially from investment.

Co-operatives UK has framed the Middleton MDC as a chance to do regeneration differently, running the process on co-operative principles with collective board governance. The Greater Manchester Strategy 2025-2035 positions Middleton as a specific growth location, connecting it to Atom Valley and the Northern Gateway strategic employment corridor. If the Middleton co-operative town project delivers its goals, it will provide England with a tested and documented framework for community-owned regeneration in towns that have been structurally bypassed by market-led development.

FAQs About Middleton Co‑operative Town Project