Building Thriving Neighbourhoods, the recently published Locality Manifesto sets out a positive vision of where it proposes we can get to in 10 years’ time if communities are put in charge.
Practical and achievable
As we approach a general election, the manifesto seeks to showcase this potential to politicians so that the next government can help inspire what it calls a “Community Power Revolution”. Locality believe it’s a potential that is practical and achievable, because it’s based on things that their members are doing every day.
It is a manifesto that is relevant to different types of neighbourhoods across the country, including those in and around our town and city centres.
Five big reforms
The Locality Manifesto sets-out five big reforms that it says can inspire a community power revolution:
- Introduce a Community Power Act, to create three new community rights -to buy assets of community value, to shape public services, and to control local investment. And to create Community Covenants, new power sharing arrangements between councils and local communities.
- Inspire a step change in community ownership, through a new, cross-government National Community Ownership Strategy that boosts community ownership and capacity from energy to housing to health.
- Put communities in charge of local economic development, giving residents more control over local regeneration spending and radically devolving employment and skills support to the hyper-local level.
- Make collaboration -not competition the guiding principle of public services, with bold reform of commissioning and shifting budgets to community-led prevention.
- Community-led housing and planning, giving communities a tangible stake in their neighbourhoods by supporting the growth of community-led housing and spreading the use of neighbourhood planning.
It is a very well-documented manifesto with detailed steps and examples set out for each of these proposed reforms.
Achievable ambitions
Are ambitions on the scale of the manifesto achievable? Well, if you walk along the South Bank in London between Waterloo and London Bridge Stations, you can get a sense of the scale at which community enterprises can own and manage assets successfully. The walk will take you past the thriving Gabriel’s Wharf alongside the Thames-side path, under the iconic Oxo Tower and onwards to the bustling Borough Market. All these prominent South Bank assets, as well as housing schemes and neighbourhood centres behind them are community-owned and managed.
Woven into future funding schemes
For our town and city centres, imagine if all of the Towns Fund and Levelling-Up schemes that have been rolled-out in recent years, had the creation of viable community assets and enterprises woven into their requirements. If supported by know-how and capacity building, might this have represented a better return on public investment and helped secure long-term community benefit and viability.
The Locality Manifesto, Building Thriving Neighbourhoods, is something we recommend you read with open eyes! Whether you are an aspiring politician or are looking at how your neighbourhood or town centre can be turned-around, the Manifesto will help you better understand the potential role of community enterprises.
For more information
Read and download Building Thriving Neighbourhoods, the recently published Locality Manifesto.
Find out more about the South Bank assets owned by Coin Street development trust or the operational impacts of the centuries-old community ownership of Borough Market.
Learn more about the art of asset-based development supporting theatres and cinemas in in small towns.
