Co-working in Haslemere
On 8th April I spoke at the Spring meeting of the Haslemere Society and raised the question of whether co-working is a force for good. This is a summary of the speech given to a very engaged audience with lots of questions at the end.
Although the late nineteenth century may seem an improbable place to start to tell a story about the contemporary phenomenon of co-working, we have been very influenced by ideas from that time in the way we have designed HasleWorks.
One of our slogans is “the double pleasure of lovely surroundings and happy work”, adopted from Godfrey Blount who lived in Haslemere at the end of the nineteenth century and co-founded the Peasant Art Movement. This saw the town become a hub of creative industry with an enterprise culture in which people were able to work productively close to home, as part of a community. We have a copy of one of Blount’s designs, the Tree of Life, hanging on our wall and its vibrant colours, green, blue and coral red are used throughout our interior decor. (And we are very grateful to the V&A for giving us permission to use the image).
Creating lovely surroundings for people to work locally here in Haslemere has been a guiding principle in the way we have envisaged HasleWorks. The idea of setting up a co-working space here was complete impulse. I was walking through the town centre in September 2020, noticing empty buildings including the premises formerly occupied by retail banks and wondered what would become of our local shops and cafes after such a significant disruption to economic activity. My route took me past the station where the car park was at a fraction of its capacity and it seemed most likely that people would not return to commuting five days a week, having been able to prove that they could work remotely, for some of the time at least. So the plan to reconcile these two things, to turn a town centre building into a co-working space, began to take shape from that point. I never saw this as a means of making a personal profit, but more a kind of social enterprise, generating income to make a contribution to our local community, delivering social and economic value but also providing a positive focus for life returning to normal.
By April 2021 we had taken over the building at 2-4 Petworth Road and began a four month refurbishment project and a team had formed, including my son Dom, an experienced ‘co-worker’ and my husband Matthew together with our neighbours Kate Bradford and Paul Edwards who have been a constant source of wisdom and help. We did some initial market research which indicated potential demand and the need for flexible pricing options to give the choice of using HasleWorks as frequently or infrequently as required. Since we opened in August 2021 we have seen our convictions confirmed and around 130 people have now registered with us, with a strong core of very regular members who come in every week.
The most exciting aspect of HasleWorks has been to see the genuine value that it is giving to those who work here and the way it brings together under one roof people doing very different things. At any one time we may have a communications consultant, an expert in digital marketing, an investment advisor, a solicitor, a PhD researcher, a copywriter, a data analyst and the list goes on. Some of our members are employed by large organisations and some are freelance or are founders of small enterprises managing staff elsewhere. We have three booths for private calls and these are proving to be very valuable. Successful job interviews have taken place from them, contracts negotiated and we have even had a barrister conduct court hearings.
My starting point back in September 2020 was a concern about the local economy and every working day we are driving business to local shops and cafes. For example we have deliberately not installed a coffee machine so that people will go out to buy their coffee which they are certainly doing. We also want the building to pull its weight as a community asset and so we have hosted various activities, including a get together for some women entrepreneurs who all started up new businesses during the lockdown. And without stretching the parallels too far, there is something reminiscent of the culture of the late nineteenth century in the creativity of their home based enterprises and the network they have formed.
So returning to the influence of people who lived in the town over a hundred years ago we see the legacy they have left in institutions such as the Museum and Haslemere Hall and how they were guided by another popular slogan of the time, ‘for love not money’. Thankfully the town still has a very strong volunteer spirit, including all of those people who give their time to the Haslemere Society and have worked hard to preserve so many things of value here. At HasleWorks we meet many people who have moved to there area very recently, attracted by the historic buildings and the beautiful landscape on our doorstep. We are pleased to be able to provide them with a place to work close to home and to make our contribution to the town’s social and economic fabric.