Oldham as Social Enterprise Place: A Landmark for Our Town and a Challenge to Rise To.
By Anwar Ali, OBE · Co-Founder & CEO, Upturn Enterprise Ltd · December 2024
People often ask me why Upturn has always been based in Oldham. It’s a fair question — many of our programmes reach far beyond the borough, and there are easier places to build a social enterprise than one of the most deprived towns in England.
But the answer is simple. Oldham is where the need is greatest, where the community is strongest, and where the gap between what people deserve and what they get is most stark. If I could sort out problems in Oldham, I told myself when we started, I could do it anywhere.
Oldham’s designation as a SEUK Social Enterprise Place is therefore a moment of enormous personal significance to me — and to everyone at Upturn who has spent years making the case that our town can be a leader, not a laggard, in building a more equitable economy.
What Is a Social Enterprise Place?
Social Enterprise Places is a national programme run by Social Enterprise UK — the leading body for social enterprise in the UK. Towns, cities and regions that achieve Social Enterprise Place status are formally recognised as areas where social enterprise is driving economic and social progress — and where local institutions are committed to supporting the sector’s growth.
What It Means for Oldham
For Oldham, the designation is significant on multiple levels. It creates a platform for the borough’s considerable social enterprise activity to be recognised, celebrated and supported. It connects Oldham’s social enterprise community to a national network of best practice and learning. And it signals to funders, investors and potential partners that Oldham is serious about building an economy that works for everyone.
But designation is not an achievement. It is an invitation. The real work — connecting social enterprises to opportunity, building the infrastructure for inclusive growth, and ensuring that the benefits of social enterprise activity reach the communities that need them most — lies ahead.
What We Are Committed to Doing
At Upturn, we are committed to playing our full part. Through Hive Oldham, through our enterprise networks, through our employability programmes and through our partnerships with the public and private sector, we will continue to build an Oldham where opportunity is genuinely available to everyone — whatever their background, circumstance or postcode.
Towns like Oldham were left behind when industries disappeared. The cotton mills closed, manufacturing declined and nothing replaced them. Successive generations inherited not just poverty but a sense that this was just how things would always be. Social enterprise is one of the most powerful tools we have for breaking that cycle — and Oldham is showing the country how it is done.
