Tenure & Ownership
Petra's study on the benefits of community land ownership
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- Tuesday, 21 April 2009 09:25 Petra Vergunst Hits: 753
My study of ten Scottish community projects showed that community land ownership provides environmental, economic and social benefits. Community landlords provide local facilities and through these economic regeneration, a sense of community and empowerment, and ultimately a higher degree of self-determination.
In its pursuit of buying business premises to create workshops for local business, Langholm Initiative aims to create local economic facilities, contributing to local economic regeneration, and enhancing its self-reliance. Likewise, Abriachan Forest Trust has developed recreational paths and a forest education centre that contributes to local employment, an increased sense of community and a heightened capacity to determine its own future.
As such, these findings endorse the Scottish Community Empowerment action plan launched last March. The action plan recognises that the ownership of assets can empower communities by providing income for community organisations, renewing a sense of pride, and increasing a sense of control over the the future of the places where people live and work.
Even so, I found that the environmental, economic and social benefits of community landlordship were not exclusively experienced by communities who owned their assets. Communities who co-managed or lease assets, for example in a community partnership with Forestry Commission Scotland, or who developed common property such as cultural heritage, benefited in similar ways. In restoring historical sites, Kirkconnel Parish Heritage society created a more attractive local environment and thereby strengthened the sense of community and pride in the village.
Yet ownership of assets is likely to increase the sustainability of the local facilities and the community’s capacity to generate income. Legal ownership means that communities have control over the decisions in relation to their assets, and as a business plan has been part of the application for funding for the buy-out, the vision for the future management of the asset is likely to be stronger.
The Scottish Community Empowerment action plan rightly recognises that asset ownership will not be an option for all communities. The uptake of the community right to buy has indeed been low. As the environmental, economic and social benefits of community asset management are not only experienced by those communities who own their assets, there is a need to express appreciation for those communities who want to develop co-managed and leased assets and common property too.
You can read the full report on my website: www.sustainablecommunitydevelopment.co.uk.
