Skip to content
openDemocracy
Sign in Subscribe

Community Rights: where’s the evidence?

The Communities and Local Government Select Committee has reported back on its inquiry into Community Rights. The government has responded – using dodgy data to reward bad performance. What’s the story?

By Laird Ryan
Published:
Share
monkey.jpg
monkey.jpg

Wikimedia: John Snape. Some rights reserved.

What exactly are Community Rights, and how are they supposed to work?

The Localism Act 2011 contains a suite of new community rights: to bid (for Assets of Community Value); to challenge (for the delivery of services); to build (local facilities and amenities); and to reclaim (derelict or unused public land). To help local groups take up these rights, the government has now allocated around £32m in funding. This is managed by the Social Investment Business (SIB) Group, through what its website describes as an ‘engaged investor’ approach. Locality, the government’s neighbourhood planning franchisee, encourages take-up of the rights in terms of heroic enthusiasm.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. If you have any queries about republishing please contact us. Please check individual images for licensing details.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0