Our History
Everyone needs to wash their clothes in one way or another!
We wanted to create a space that meets the needs of our community for quality, affordable laundry facilities, as well as having an accessible, welcoming space to come together for creative and social activities.
To get our idea for a community launderette off the ground, it took around three years of engaging local people with our idea, researching and building a strong business plan, finding a premises and raising money for equipment to get the space open.
Kitty’s Launderette opened its doors to start washing in May 2019, and has been open 6 days a week ever since!
Through collaboration, hard work, determination and creativity we have managed to build a special place for everyone in our neighbourhood and we are committed to continuous improvement of our organisation, our services and reaching more people in our community over the coming years.
Our Positive Social Impact
At Kitty’s Launderette, we work to make positive community impact in three key ways:
Quality laundry services for everyone in our neighbourhood, especially those struggling with hygiene poverty, fuel poverty and financial hardship.
An accessible, welcoming social space for everyone in our diverse local community through a engaging program of social and creative activities.
Creating quality, flexible Real Living wage Jobs for people in our community, in particular those who may face additional barriers to work. Meaningful democratic participation through our worker-community co-operative structure.
Through our member consultation in 2023, we recently reviewed our mission and outcomes and added two more impact areas:
Volunteering opportunities
Sharing our model and learning with others
Our democratic governance structure
Kitty’s Launderette is a worker-community co-operative. This democratic structure was chosen to reflect both the worker-lead nature of the organisation, while also enabling broader community input and accountability from a voluntary board.
Kitty’s board is made up of a committee of directors. Directors are elected by the Members. Our directors are answerable to Kitty’s members, through the co-op’s annual general meeting. The board’s job is to represent the interests of the Members by making sure Kitty’s sticks to its mission, stays within the law and is run properly.
In practice, the board ‘lends’ a lot of its power and responsibility to the people running the co-op day to day – the worker team - as they are on the ground, connected to the community and understand the business inside out. The team can make decisions and put them into practice, as long as they’re in line with any policies that the board has agreed. The team develops Kitty’s business strategy and policies; the board reviews and approves them.
The worker team is made up of local people who apply to join through regular, open and inclusive recruitment processes. The worker team operates within a non-hierarchical/ flat structure, where we take collective responsibility over the running of organisation. All work is valued equally so workers are paid the same hourly wage, irrespective of age, experience or length of service. Kitty’s Launderette is a Real Living Wage employer and offers guaranteed hours to all workers.
