Cranhill Credit Union was set up by John Kerr, Ellen Kerr, Helen Kane MBE and other committed members of the community in 1976. This was modelled on Scotland's first credit union, the Western Credit Union (now Drumchapel Credit Union) established by Bert Mullen in 1970.

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At the time, poverty levels were very high; housing needed refurbishment and the people of the area suffered from lack of access to community resources. Confidence, self-esteem and aspirations for future development were low in the community. The Home Credit Industry provided the sole access to financial services for many families at very high rates of interest, which compounded the existing poverty levels.

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In our early day’s we worked from the founder member's homes, in a block of maisonettes, this was carried out on a rotational basis, operating on a Thursday evening, this would be the building blocks creating a strong foundation for the credit union.

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Fortunately, we were able to secure and convert unused storage space below the maisonettes, which became known as the Court Room, in keeping with the address "Bellrock Court"

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This created space for individual office’s and a large member area, this was also used as a lunch club for the elderly during the day. We also established a food cooperative on the same site.

This generated significant growth and solidified our place in the community.

We then moved to our current premises which was previously the local park keepers house. It required a great deal of work to refurbish and create an office space.

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We wanted to create a space that would retain the same feeling as the Court Room, keep that sense of community and ownership.

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We have now been here for close to 30 years, hopefully in 2021 we can develop our home further and continue to provide the best service for our members.

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our team: