The Big Society is an idea whose time has come.

High Street Malvern has been in the vanguard of this initiative for the past three years and plans to use the momentum of the Big Society to move forward.

In 2007 the then Civic Trust were given public funding to promote and introduce an American concept known as Main Street USA. The ethos for this project was to encourage local people to become directly involved with the aesthetic, cultural, environmental and economic well being of their own community.

Malvern was selected to pilot the project, to refine it to meet UK requirements and to assist in its roll-out across England. The Civic Trust received £40,000 for the project and allocated £4,000 to Malvern to fund the initial set-up work. Unfortunately only £2,000 of this was received by HSM before the Civic Trust went into liquidation. However, since the original public meeting in Malvern, held in September 2007, HSM has become a company limited by guarantee, achieved charitable status and our constitution is community specific. All our members are volunteers with no paid staff.

Although the current economic climate may result in little more being implemented immediately, it has to be acknowledged that considerable progress has already been achieved over the last 3 years. We are now in a position to move forward, canvass for a wider membership and consider the option of becoming a local Area Development Trust.

On the following pages we list our achievements and aspirations.