Alyth group hopes hostels breathe new life into communities

A Perthshire social enterprise group is to open its first hostel in a Fife village after receiving £18,000 in funding.

Hostel Hub – based in Alyth – wants to tackle issues such as unemployment, crime and poverty by creating a network of boutique hostels to support community regeneration.

Hostel Hub director Rachel DuBois received Big Lottery funding for a pilot project that would transform part of an existing building in Culross into a hostel.

It is hoped lessons learned from the Culross pilot would lead to the company opening a flagship hostel in Scotland and establishing a network of boutique hostels across the UK and beyond.

Rachel said: “We aim to put money into communities, create jobs and help people to connect with each other.

“We particularly want to target rural areas where young people leave and local amenities like shops, schools etc are closing.”

Hostel Hub was one of seven Scottish social enterprises to be chosen to receive funding from LaunchMe, the £825,000 business accelerator programme delivered by social enterprise development agency Firstport.

The business plans to work with charities and other organisations that have underused buildings and need to generate funds.

Rachel said: “We want to become the leading hostels consultancy in the UK, whilst creating jobs and helping communities to regenerate themselves. As we open more hostels, we can scale up our profits and our social impact and benefit communities nationally and even internationally.”

Firstport chief executive Karen McGregor said: “We are delighted to reveal our exciting new LaunchMe 2015 businesses.

“We look forward to working with these inspiring enterprises over the next 18 months to help them find and secure the right investor who can help them rapidly scale up their social and economic impact.”