We have a short window to inspire the government to make important changes to strengthen the future of community land ownership.
If you are represented by a Labour MP* please email them, working from our suggested starting template letter below:
Get their email via https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP
It will be in the format firstname.surname.mp@parliament.uk
Clicking this link should copy the below letter directly into your email app or you can cut and paste it from below.
Please insert your MP’s name and email address, add your name and postal address plus tweak the paragraph about why this is important to you.
* A cross party group of MPs had been working on an amendment to change this, but as this was officially submitted by Lib Dems, it got struck off at committee stage due to party politics.
Community ownership of environmental assets in the English Devolution Bill
Dear ____________,
I am writing to you as a member of your constituency asking that you contact Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh urging her to amend the English Devolution & Community Empowerment Bill to extend its Community Right to Buy powers, so that communities can also own environmental assets like peat bogs, woods and rivers.
Last year, the Unleashing Community Ownership report, commissioned by Lisa Nandy and published by the Co-operative Party, recommended an extension of Asset of Community Value (ACV) criteria to include environmental benefits alongside social and economic considerations.
The English Devolution Bill currently extends the criteria for ACVs to include economic alongside social benefits, but it fails to include environmental criteria. This seems to me to be an oversight, and I very much hope this can be corrected by amending the Bill in Report Stage.
This is especially relevant to me and your constituents as a group of us are (choose then delete as appropriate):
- hoping to use these new laws to challenge the blight of speculative land banking in our area by bringing derelict eyesore sites into community ownership.
- hoping to bring a grouse moor on the edge of Sheffield into community ownership to prevent the air pollution caused by moorland burning for bird shooting, promote CO2 sequestration through rewetting and improve biodiversity
- hoping to … {insert your own example}
Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing back from you, there is further background on this matter below should you wish for more context.
Best wishes
{insert your name}
{insert your full address}
** Further explanation courtesy of the CLT Network **
Previously the definition of ACVs only defined them in terms of ‘social interests’. This was always an anomaly, as most legislation in recent decades has applied the three wellbeing criteria in the government’s own definition of sustainable development – social, economic and environmental interests. For example, the planning system uses this definition of sustainable development, and it thus conditions the value of assets that communities might wish to list. In Scotland, the model that the Scottish Labour government introduced similarly frames the right in terms of sustainable development.
The government has partly accepted this, adding ‘economic interests’ alongside social. But not environmental. This would mean that Community Land Trusts couldn’t refer to, and rely on, environmental considerations if they wished to list a piece of land as an ACV.
To illustrate what this might look like, we can look at examples from Scotland such as the successful registration of “Poet’s Neuk” in St Andrews. This is a derelict piece of land within the town which the community wanted to turn into a community garden. It’s easy to imagine this applying to e.g. a scrap of land in Sheffield. You can see the registration docs and in document 21 read their account of how the registration would further the economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development. On the environment they touch on litter, a green breathing space, more green space per capita, and tackling air pollution and C02 through planting. It would have made no sense for the community to propose a garden without reference to these environmental aspects.
Omitting environmental interests goes back on what the Labour Party promised during the election campaign, during which Shadow Environment Secretary Steve Reed announced a set of nature policies that included CRTB to “empower communities to create new parks and green spaces… help them purchase and restore derelict land and green space of community value.”
We understand that one concern from officials is that communities might try and list lots of land around their settlement as an ACV to block development. But this can easily be resolved in the guidance (as provided for in 86X), which could make clear that:
(1) ACVs cannot be accepted on land that is allocated in the Local Plan, except where the proposed use is congruent with the use intended in the Local Plan.
(2) ACVs cannot be used for proposals that are purely about environmental protection. They are to be used to further sustainable development, which must include social and economic interests.
(3) ACVs cannot be used to indiscriminately register parcels of land within an area, and communities must make a case as to why a specific piece of land is of importance to the community.