Rock Mill Centre CIC
28 March 2025
Sector: Visitor & Community Centre
Location: High Peak
Rock Mill Centre CIC (community interest company) is based in the centre of New Mills, Derbyshire.
It began by taking on the lease of the former Heritage and Information Centre three years ago and constituting itself as a small organisation. It opened to the public in September 2022 and became a CIC in August 2024.
Rock Mill Centre is a voluntary organisation with six directors. Its purpose is to provide a visitor and community hub for New Mills that works towards a sustainable future for everyone. The Centre itself aims to engage people with the environment and hosts activities that support community cohesion and mutual care.
It welcomes visitors to the town, provides leaflets about the area and has displays about the local rivers, landscapes and community. It also runs a small café with a monthly Supper Club. Registered as a Safe Space and Warm Space, throughout winter the team provide a free community meal known as Souper Fridays.
It runs a variety of community and environmental events throughout the year and accommodates the Brian Nolan Trust and Littlest Theatre in New Mills.
Rock Mill Centre CIC is currently working with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Derbyshire Time Swap, New Mills Town Council, Nature New Mills, Walkers are Welcome New Mills and the Solitary Bee Nursery, amongst many other groups. It is intentionally pursuing the goals of High Peak Borough Council’s Tourism and Biodiversity Strategies.
Challenges faced
The greatest challenge for the business is making the Centre sustainable – both financially and with volunteer staffing. The set-up phase was financed by director loans and some project grants.
In the long term the Centre will need a part-time paid administrator to manage the business, and this is likely to require some large grant applications.
Solution and Impact
Rock Mill Centre CIC has been supported by the Accelerator project. Accelerator is funded by High Peak Borough Council’s share of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) and delivered by East Midlands Chamber.
This involved an assessment of the business and immediate suggestions of the next steps around writing a business plan and encouraging and enabling donations with Chamber Business Advisers, including David Smith and Richard Crowden.
With adviser support a fully funded energy audit was completed resulting in the creation of a decarbonisation plan. Advisers also guided the business through all the stages of applying for High Peak Borough Council’s Decarbonisation Grant and the business was successfully awarded £5,000 towards the delivery of the first phase of its decarbonisation plan.
The energy audit, decarbonisation plan and grant will all help future proof the business and remove its reliance on gas. It will cut that volatile cost, avoid any future penalties and help the coherence of its business identity.
Director, Toby Hardwick commented: “Having a showcase decarbonisation project fits well with us being an information centre that is looking to guide people towards a sustainable future for all. It shows how our environmental displays and support for public transport, and local producers is all part of one aim. We see this as a way of increasing our footfall and delivering more of the Council’s strategies locally.”
Rock Mill Centre CIC is seeing the business potential of the decarbonisation project. For example, with their architect, they are exploring how to make the new porch a usable space that will increase its revenue by adding to its café area and bringing people using the public toilet into its building.
Based on estimates from the Energy Saving Trust the business could save at least £290 per year and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2.9t CO₂e.
The Decarbonisation project is a whole building approach that aims to reduce its overall energy use by increasing it thermal efficiency and will, it is hoped, also result in increased savings.
“I’m particularly grateful for how approachable and personally helpful all the members of the East Midlands Chamber have been. Although other directors have business experience, I do not. The Chamber team guided me throughout the grant process with lots of phone calls and emails. It feels a lot of expertise is openly shared.
The 1-to-1 business advice was really impressive – the assessment of what our business was and how it could work better was focused and knowledgeable.”
- Toby Hardwick, Director
This initiative is funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) and delivered by East Midlands Chamber on behalf of High Peak Borough Council.
