community assets

Community Right to Bid (assets of community value)

Community ‘Right to Bid’ is one of the rights included in the Localism Act. It could play a key part in wider community planning of your neighbourhood…

Community 'Right to Bid' is one of the rights included in the Localism Act. It could play a key part in wider community planning of your neighbourhood...

In more detail

‘Community right to bid’ is one of the powers enabled by the Localism Act 2011. It enables bona fide community groups to apply to the council to have land and buildings in their area registered as assets of community value.

Register of Assets of Community Value

To add an asset on to the local register, you have to show that the land and buildings in question have been used in the past as an asset with social value and that they could feasibly be used again for community benefit (although not necessarily in the same way). For example, a residents’ association could apply to the local council to have local swimming baths registered as an asset of community value so long as it is feasible that the baths building could be used for community benefit in future (perhaps as a community venue or community workspace even if not as a swimming baths). Listed assets can be owned by anyone – including private individuals and businesses as well as community groups or public agencies: this is about the local pub or corner shop as much as it is about the library or community centre.

The advantage of listing land or buildings as an asset of community value is this: if a listed asset comes up for sale, then the owner must give six months for community groups to put together an offer to buy it before they can sell it on the open market. The community right to bid is a brake on selling off assets with community value, not a prohibition. Even so, listing land and buildings in your area that serve a vital community function is a practical straightforward step you can take to make it clear that the communities which share your neighbourhood want to preserve and improve local wellbeing and will not easily see it diminished.

The video below is a webinar on Community Right to Bid led by Anton Schultz of Locality

Your local council must keep a register of assets of community assets. They can, however, refuse your application. The landowner can appeal against their decision, in any case and can refuse any bid you might be able to put to them in the event of wanting to sell the asset. Even so, listing assets can be a powerful way of sending a message about the determination of your community to preserve and improve local social value and wellbeing.

Key Facts:

Community 'Right to Bid' enables community groups to have the council register land and buildings that have social value listed as such (regardless of who owns them). Being on the council's register means that, when these assets are sold, the community has six months to put together a bid to buy them before theycan be sold on the open market.

Page Links from here

The Step-by-Step Guide to Community Right to Bid from Locality

Guide to Community Right to Bid is available as a PDF

CAMRA's guide to 'Listing your Local'

In the toolkit:

Community Asset Transfer

Community Assets

Development Trusts

Neighbourhood Companies

OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.

created: 2016-06-28 15:15:16

by: admin

status: f published

Community Asset Transfer

What if under-used land and buildings which belong to public bodies could be taken over by passionate community groups and development trusts and used to provide services to the community…

What if under-used land and buildings which belong to public bodies could be taken over by passionate community groups and development trusts and used to provide services to the community...

In more detail

Community Asset Transfer (CAT) is the process by which publicly owned land and buildings can be sold either freehold or leasehold to non-profit bodies at less than market value. CAT can lead to the rejuvenation of neglected public assets - run-down buildings and unloved patches of land.

The video above which suggests how community asset transfer can build community and improve neighbourhoods is also featured in this presentation on CAT made by Hannah Senior in 2013:

The enthusiasm of volunteers and residents to improve these assets when they are transferred to community owenrship has been matched in some cases by the ability of the new owners to attract capital investment from charitable sources including the National Lottery. The real ongoing benefit, however, is the value of the services which community groups are able to provide using previously tired assets.

Linda Hines of Witton Lodge Community Association interviewed on site, by Nick Booth of podnosh, at Perry Common Community Hall which was transferred through CAT to community ownership and has been transformed as a result.

Economic Justification

CAT is justified economically by comparing the additional economic value which the public body would get from the sale of the asset on the open market with the social value which the public body is able to enable by transferring it through CAT.

For example, a patch of disused health service land could be sold on the open market for £5000 to provide two car parking spaces. Alternatively, it could be transferred through CAT to a community group that would pay £500 for it. The group would turn it into a community garden which would produce benefits for local people and a local mental health project and might lead to greater neighbourliness, improved community safety and better recovery from mental ill-health. If the health service trust and its police and council partners value these benefits as being worth more than £4500, then they should choose use CAT to sell it to the community group.

The video below is about CAT in Penny Lane, Liverpool. It was produced by the Asset Transfer Unit (which was set up the Development Trusts Association, which was one of the bodies that came together to form Locality):

Transparency, Fairness and Social Valuation

CAT is potentially open to abuse where it involves transferring public assets to private (albeit non-profit and local) organisations without having a robust means for valuing social worth in place; without sufficient transparency; and without advertising opportunities to a wide range of potential bidders.

For example, a patch of land worth £5000 is sold to a community trust which is in fact a non-profit company owned by members of a local family for £500 on the basis that they will use it for 'community benefit'. What they actually do with it is to create car parking spaces for visitors to their office base from which they provide mental health services on contract with an NHS trust. The person who made the decision to sell them the land at 10% of the full market value is a friend of the family.

Support

The video below presents help and support available for CAT from My Community:

Key Facts:

Community Asset Transfer (CAT) is the process by which underused publicly owned land and buildings may be sold to non-profit organisations at less than market value in return for providing increased social value in the form of services to the local community. CAT has successfully turned ailing assets around, but there is potential for abuse. A robust approach to calculating social value, transparency and advertising opportunities to acquire assets widely all help to prevent abuse.

Page Links from here

Birmingham City Council's Community Asset Transfer website describes one council's approach to CAT

The My Community Rights site section on Community Asset Transfer presents an overview and a link to the toolkit on CAT

More videos about CAT are available on the Asset Transfer Unit YouTube channel

Housing Association Charitable Trust has produced a toolkit for housing providers on Asset Transfer

Have a look at Coin Street Community Builders on the South Bank in London which was one of the groups that helped to pioneer development trusts and CAT

In this toolkit see:

Social Value

Community Assets

Development Trusts

Neighbourhood Companies

OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

created: 2016-06-16 11:18:43

by: admin

status: f published

Development Trusts

Community assets can be managed to provide services and the money made re-invsted back into community activities. Development trusts are community-led organisations that are frequently set up to achieve this…

In more detail

A development trust is a partnership organisation which brings together people and organisations with a stake in a locality to enable them – through shared ownership of assets – to lead and attract investment in making the neighbourhood a better place to live. Typically, a local development trust is a body set up to manage a local asset by people and organisations with an interest in the improvement of an area to:

carry out improvements to the locality including the local physical and social environment and the skills of local people
provide services to earn income and enable others to carry out improvements to the area
lobby for and promote the improvement of the area by larger organisations including in partnership with local people and organisations.

Development Trust Structures

A trust is non-profit body which operates as a social enterprise: in a business-like way, but generating social value as well as economic value and re-investing any surplus into its own development and that of the area. Trusts do not have a particular legal structure and they can be set up as non-profit companies limited by guarantee (CLGs), with or without Community Interest Company (CIC) status, co-operatives or charities (including as Charitable Incorporated Organisations). In order to achieve their objects, trusts must be able to enter into contracts to employ staff, pay contractors, charge customers etc and so need to be incorporated (have their own legal identity).

Asset Based Regeneration

Local development trusts are a form of neighbourhood company. They are often associated with and active exponents of an approach to local development called asset based regeneration. This was developed by a number of pioneering trusts from the 1960s onwards and become the guiding philosophy of the Development Trusts Association which merged to form Locality in 2011.

Asset based regeneration emphasises the ownership of local assets (as opposed, for example to their management or the ability to earn fees) in order to generate revenue that can be re-invested in the area. Although the most obvious asset for development trusts to use ion this way might seem to be housing (which generates ready and reliable revenue in the form of rents), not many trusts own housing but tend to own areas of land and community buildings instead.

Key Facts:

Development Trusts are community-led bodies which may be supported by local businesses and public agencies as well as individual members. They are generally set up to manage a lcoal asset or group of assets - typically including a building which is used as a meeting place and offers workspace. Any profit they make from services they provide is re-invested in improving the neighbourhood.

Page Links from here

Locality is the network for development trusts and other similar bodies.

In this toolkit see:

Neighbourhood Companies

Community Assets

Social Enterprise

Community Asset Transfer

Locality

OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

created: 2016-06-16 11:08:47

by: admin

status: f published

Community assets are the resources you have to make your neighbourhood a better place to live. They are more diverse than some people imagine. But… sometimes what look like assets might turn out to be liabilities? Working out what assets are in your neighbourhood and how they could be better used is a key part of community planning…

Community assets are the resources you have to make your neighbourhood a better place to live. They are more diverse than some people imagine. But... sometimes what look like assets might turn out to be liabilities? Working out what assets are in your neighbourhood and how they could be better used is a key part of community planning...

In more detail

Community assets are resources communities can use to get things done. Examples could include:

meeting places
social networks
volunteers
land and buildings
contracts and businesses
business supporters
a farmers’ market
members' and their enthusiasm and wisdom
relationships with the managers of local public services
a network of community groups
projects which help people share - like timebanks and toobanks
community groups.

Some community assets are land and buildings, but most aren’t. Some are owned, but many aren’t (you can’t legally own a relationship or a network) and some could be managed and not owned and they would still be assets. Some of the list relate directly to the aims of the community group (which might be to provide a community centre or affordable housing). Some assets are indirectly related – they earn money which enable you to do other things. Some community assets are intangible – networks and relationships for example can be vital resources, but they aren’t things you can touch or get valued by an estate agent. Finally, the assets which one community has in a neighbourhood aren’t necessarily shared by others in the same neighbourhood – unless you have some means for exchanging and sharing them – like a timebank or a toolshare, for example.

Making an Inventory (and Map it)

If you aim to plan and make a better your neighbourhood a better place to live, you might find it useful to make a list (an inventory to use a formal accounting expression) of relevant community assets? When you do, bear in mind community assets might:

include land and buildings but are not just land and buildings
be owned by the community, or might be managed by it or simply be usable by it
relate to the aim, directly or indirectly, of making the locality a better place
include dedicated public servants and local business people who care about the place as much as you
be things you can lay your hands on and might also include relationships, understandings and networks
include tools, but the skills to use tools can be more important and valuable
be owned by a community group or someone else, but not worth much if you have no way of trading and exchanging favours and resources
liabilities – that is things that get in the way of doing what you want to do. Community centres can be full of asbestos. Contracts can be impossible to deliver at a profit. Trading activities can make a loss. And relationships can be based on you doing everyone a good turn and never getting one back.

Social Value

When you have made a list of local community assets, you can work out out what value they currently have (to do with how they are being used at the moment). You can also think about what social value could be added by using assets in different ways (ie how they might be used in future). Rather than worrying about who (if anyone) owns partocular assets, think about how they could be used to add more social value to the neighbourhood?

Key Facts:

Community assets aren't just land and building, but also relationships, networks, people and skills etc. If you wan to work out how to make them benefit your neighbourhood then make a list and think about how they could be used in different ways.

Page Links from here

The Locality website explains community assets

You might also be interested in looking up an approach called Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) and the ABCD Institute which were pioneered by John McKnight and John Kretzmann who wrote Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing A Community’s Assets in 1993

And on this site:

Social Value

Community Asset Transfer

Social Capital

Community Hubs and Networks

Community

Community Groups

OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

created: 2016-06-12 14:47:33

by: admin

status: f published

Designated Bodies

The ‘community rights’ in the Localism Act can be exercised by certain designated groups on behalf of the community…

The 'community rights' in the Localism Act can be exercised by certain designated groups on behalf of the community...

In more detail

The Localism Act 2011 designates which sort of community organisations can take on and lead the exercise of the various 'community powers' it sets out.

Neighbourhood Planning/Neighbourhood Development Orders

Neighbourhood planning (including neighbourhood development orders) must be led by the local parish council if one exists. In places where there is none - as in most urban neighbourhoods - then neighbourhood planning may be led by a 'neighbourhood forum'. The law says: forums must have at least 21 members; have membership which os representative of the area they cover (including business and public sector representatives); and have a written constitution. These requirements apply to existing bodies as well as to bodies formed for the purpose of neighbourhood planning. So, you may find that existing residents' groups and even bodies called neighbourhood forums and accepted by the council as such, do not qualify as designated bodies. In which case, you will have to set up a new body or change the constitution etc of an existing body in order to have a suitable body to lead on neighbourhood planning.

Assets of Community Value/Right to Bid

Any eligible community or voluntary organisation can nominate land or buildings to be included on the register of assets of community value kept by the council for the purposes of 'Right to Bid'. To be eligible, groups most be either an unincorporated association (like most residents' associations) with at least 21 members in the council's area; or a parish council, registered charity, indistrial and provident society (which is a form used by cooperatives), a company limited by guarantee or community interest company or a local neighbourhood forum as defined above. Neither the council, nor profit-making businesses may nominate assets for the register.

When land or buildings which are listed on the register of assets of community value is put up for sale by its owner, then suitably qualified 'community interest groups' have a six month window of opportunity within which to submit bids offers to buy the asset before the landowner is allowed to sell it on the open market. To be eligible as a community interest group, you must have a local connection with the asset and be: a parish council, a registered charity, a community interest company, a company limited by guarantee or an industrial and provident society. Neighbourhood forums (unless they are also one of the above) and unincorporated bodies can nominate assets for listing, but cannot exercise the right to bid.

Right to Challenge

Voluntary and community groups, charities, social enterprises, parish councils, local council and fire and rescue authority staff can express interest in running local council services where they believe they can do so differently and better. If the council accepts the written expression of interest (and if it doesn't, it must explain why), this triggers a procurement exercise in which the interested group may take part alongside any other organisation, including profit-making businesses, that are fit to deliver the service. So, businesses, which cannot trigger the challenge, can nonetheless bid to run the service if the challenge is accepted by the council.

Key Facts:

Parish councils and neighbourhood forums that have been constituted according to a legal minimum can exercise powers relating to neighbourhood planning. Parish councils, neighbourhood forums and a wide range of other non-profit groups can nominate assets of community value, but neighbourhood forums cannot exercise the subsequent righ to bid if and when it arises. Parish councils, a wide range of non-profit bodies and groups of staff who work for the council or the fire and rescue service can use the right to challenge the way a public service is run. All suitably qualified bodies, including profit-making businesses may take part in any procurement exercise arising from a successful challenge.

Page Links from here

In this toolkit:

Neighbourhood Planning

Neighbourhood Development Orders

Who Leads on Neighbourhood Planning?

Community Right to Bid

Parish Council

Community Group

OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

created: 2016-06-07 09:53:35

by: admin

status: f published