Preston City Council’s leader is flying to New York later this week to address a conference in New York about wealth building and the success of the Preston Model in the local community.
Councillor Matthew Brown was invited to speak at the Who Owns the World conference in the Big Apple about the Preston Model.
“They want to hear about the work in Preston on Community Wealth Building and have kindly offered to cover the cost of me attending,” said councillor Brown.
“At the conference are some quite notable speakers including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, New York City’s Deputy Mayor J. Philip Thompson and a number of representatives from the UK from the Labour and Cooperative movement with Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP recording a video address.”
He added: “Next month we are beginning our project to establish 10 worker owned businesses in Preston with the University of Central Lancashire, Cooperatives UK and others.
“A similar project in the Bronx takes place at the same time and there is growing collaboration between US and UK cities to support local economies that work for everyone which helped ensure our project received external funding.
“We now have two new worker owned businesses in Preston – The Larder and Preston Digital Foundation.
“This conference will explore how workers can use online platforms in sectors like cleaning, care, digital and the taxi industry to push up wages and terms and conditions which we will explore in Preston.
“This is in addition to our commitment to establish with partners a North West Community Bank.”