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Southern Co-op's headquarters at the 1000 Lakeside office complex, Portsmouth | |
Company type | Consumer Co-operative |
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Industry | Retail |
Founded | 1873 |
Headquarters | 1000 Lakeside North Harbour, Western Road, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3FE |
Area served | Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Sussex, Berkshire, Somerset, Surrey, Devon, Bristol, Kent and parts of Dorset and Wiltshire. |
Key people | Mark Ralf, Chair Mark Smith, Chief Executive |
Products | Grocer, Funeral director, Foodservice |
Revenue | ![]() |
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Members | ![]() |
Number of employees | ![]() |
Website | thesouthernco-operative |
Southern Co-op (originally Portsea Island Mutual Co-operative Society Ltd, now The Southern Co-operative Limited) is a regional consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom. The principal activities of the Society are food retailing, funeral homes, and cafes. It operates more than 300 convenience stores, funeral homes, and Starbucks coffee shops across the southern English counties of Berkshire, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, London, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex, and Wiltshire. Southern Co-op Society is owned by over 300,000 members who share in the business's profits and democratically control its operations. It was previously registered as an Industrial and Provident Society, but its status is now as a mutual society under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014. [1]
The business of Southern Co-op includes burial grounds in West Sussex, Dorset, and Cheshire, and a crematorium in Hampshire and Devon. Additionally, Southern Co-op supports franchisee stores that are members of Southern's Welcome convenience brand.
51,562 new Members joined Southern Co-op during 2023 - 24
Southern Co-op was formed in 1873 by dockyard workers who had transferred from Woolwich docks in east London to the Portsmouth dockyard. The workers had previously set up a successful Co-operative Society in Woolwich. When they arrived in Portsmouth, they decided to replicate a similar set-up there.[ citation needed ]
In December 1872, 30 people attended a public meeting and unanimously agreed to pay one shilling (12 old pence) for the establishment of a local Co-operative. After five months, the Portsea Island Mutual Co-operative Society's first shop opened in Charles Street on 9 May 1873.[ citation needed ]
The head office was previously located at Fareham in Hampshire until July 2011, when it moved to 1000 Lakeside, a business park in North Harbour, Portsmouth. [2]
In 2023, it marked its 150th anniversary with a special logo.
Registered in England and Wales under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, [1] Southern is a member of Co-operatives UK, the Co-operative Retail Trading Group and a corporate member of The Co-operative Group.
Southern Co-op operates around 200 Co-op branded convenience stores, covering Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Sussex, Berkshire, Somerset, Surrey, Devon, Bristol, Kent and parts of Dorset and Wiltshire.[ citation needed ]
Southern Co-op owns the 'Welcome' convenience store franchise,with 72 Stores open at the end of 2023. During the 2023-2024 fiscal year, 7 new stores opened in Westhoughton, Dewsbury, Bournemouth, Ripon, Wakefield, Tower Bridge and Wirral.
Cobra Coffee, a Southern Co-op subsidiary, is one of the largest Starbucks franchisees in the UK and grew from 63 to 71 stores in the 2023-2024 fiscal year under license from Starbucks across the south of England.
Southern Co-op operated 59 funeral homes across the south of England, closing one in 2023. Additionally, they operate 4 burial grounds and 2 crematoriums. [3]
Portsmouth is a port city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in England not located primarily on the mainland. The city is located 22 miles (35 km) south-east of Southampton, 50 miles (80 km) west of Brighton and Hove and 74 miles (119 km) south-west of London. With a population last recorded at 208,100, it is the most densely-populated city in the United Kingdom. Portsmouth forms part of the South Hampshire urban area with Gosport, Fareham, Havant, Eastleigh and Southampton.
A combe can refer either to a steep, narrow valley, or to a small valley or large hollow on the side of a hill; in any case, it is often understood simply to mean a small valley through which a watercourse does not run.
The Wessex Football League, known as the Velocity Wessex Football League for sponsorship reasons, is an English regional men's football league in southern England. Its members are primarily from Hampshire and Dorset, but clubs from adjoining counties such as Wiltshire, Berkshire, Surrey, and the Isle of Wight are also eligible. The Premier Division is one of the sixteen recognised leagues to form the ninth level of the English football league system, and Division One is one of seventeen recognised leagues at level 10.
The Southern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948 until 1992 when railways were re-privatised. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right in the 1980s. The region covered south London, southern England and the south coast, including the busy commuter belt areas of Kent, Sussex and Surrey. The region was largely based upon the former Southern Railway area.
Co-operative Retail Services was the second-largest consumer co-operative society in the United Kingdom. In 2000, it was dissolved by its members, merging with the larger Co-operative Wholesale Society, to form the Co-operative Group (CWS) Ltd.
BBC South is the BBC English Region serving Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Dorset, West Sussex, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and parts of Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Surrey, and Wiltshire, with geographic coverage varying between digital, television and radio services.
The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIWFRS) is the statutory fire and rescue service for the county of Hampshire, including the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth, and the county of the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England. The service was formed on 1 April 2021 from the merger of Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service and the Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service. The service's chief fire officer is Neil Odin.
Funeral Services Limited, trading as Co-op Funeralcare, is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Co-operative Group, based in Manchester, which operates over 1,000 funeral homes and is the largest funeral director in the United Kingdom, accounting for 16.5% of the "at need" funeral market during 2016. Co-op Funeralcare is a member of the National Association of Funeral Directors and is also Funeral Planning Authority registered.
The Breeze was a network of Independent Local Radio stations broadcasting to Bristol, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Somerset, North Dorset, North Gloucestershire, North Somerset, South Devon, South West Surrey, West Berkshire and West Wiltshire, as well as in East Anglia as Radio Norwich 99.9, The Beach, North Norfolk Radio, Town 102 and Dream 100. The stations broadcast a 'contemporary easy listening' format, playing classic and recent melodic popular music aimed principally at listeners over the age of 40.
The Upper Greensand Formation is a Cretaceous formation of Albian to Cenomanian in age, found within the Wessex Basin and parts of the Weald Basin in southern England. It overlies the Gault Clay and underlies the Chalk Group. It varies in thickness from zero to 75 m. It is predominantly a glauconitic fine-grained sandstone, locally becoming silty. Fragmentary dinosaur remains, such as those assigned to Iuticosaurus, have been recovered from this formation. It has been quarried as a building stone from Roman times, and used in London and the area of its outcrop from Devon to East Sussex.