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A wide shot of a remote village in Scotland sitting near a body of water
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Community Wealth Building: How Socially Productive Use of Land and Property is Transforming Communities

James Finnie has over 32 years’ experience in business management and consultancy and has been within CEIS since 2006. He is currently our New Business Development Team Leader and has experience of supporting community-based organisations across Scotland.

This week we bring to a close our month on community wealth building as we discuss the progressive use of land and property. We’ve had a hand in helping many local communities purchase lands and property from local governments and private landowners over the years as we believe community ownership is vital to the creation of a more inclusive economy in Scotland.

But what factors make communities decide to take ownership of land and properties? What are the benefits of doing so, and can governments and community organisations work together for the betterment of the individuals that populate these communities? We look at a few of these points and show an example of how we helped the community of Newcastleton in the South of Scotland to create a new future for their citizens.

Why do communities want to own local land and properties?

Many communities that go down the route of buying local land and properties do so because there has been a market failure in some way, and they feel that public service provision is not meeting their needs. That could be because there are specific social or environmental factors that are impacting their community and addressing those may be out with the scope of local or national government.

So, in my experience, that has always been a driver from communities to buy local land and properties. Once they begin to understand how they can address the problems within their communities, that’s when ownership of local assets come into the mix.

There’s a variety of issues that can cause communities to look at this solution. For example, it could be from housing failure, where local young people are unable to access the housing market and it’s causing young people to move away. In those cases, communities look to address the local housing mix and can decide to localise ownership of housing in order to solve that problem.

Or it could be regarding local transport or communication issues, and you’ll see across Scotland several examples whereby local communities are taking ownership of local harbours so that they can then utilise that to address transportation issues.

In these cases, localised ownership is a mechanism of addressing the wider social and environmental challenges that those communities face but are not being addressed by other parties, and that’s why it’s important for local communities to own local land and properties.

Local land ownership vs local government ownership

Local government ownership has centralised control at a localised level and in many cases that is a good thing, but from a local government perspective, sometimes it’s difficult to address the specific, unique needs of individual communities.

Local government areas are big, and there are many different communities in the one regional area. Often, these communities have completely different issues from each other. Local governments only have finite resources and that means they need to employ a consistent approach across every community in their area, as opposed to deploying different solutions for different problems in different areas. Sometimes that consistency of approach isn’t what’s needed. Some communities will get missed because of that. Which means that a new approach is needed.

That’s when people start to look at localised ownership and that empowers a local community to fix issues in their own way.  What I think localised ownership does, as much as it empowers the community, is that it also harnesses the potential, the talent, and the experience of the local community so that that they can really build solutions that are tailored to serve the needs of the people in that community. Community organisations can also access streams of funding that local government can’t, particularly if these organisations are social enterprises or charitable trusts.

It’s not to say that one is good, and one is bad, it’s just that they are different, and they bring different things to the table.

Is it becoming more common for local authorities and communities to work together?

I see it happening more often as local community ownership comes to the fore because Local Authorities can see the potential of it. It can help local government to address areas of difficulty that they’re experiencing in some communities.

We’re starting to see that a lot more with community asset transfer. There are buildings and assets that the Local Authority or other public sector bodies may not have either the resources or the ideas for, and so bringing that into the community can really empower the community to do things completely different.

As local governments and communities increasingly begin to work together, there’s a chance that these partnerships can continue to develop. There are opportunities for them to work together on various things. For example, with regards to healthcare provision, where there’s market issues, there’s a real chance for the NHS and local health and social care partnerships to work together with communities to address those challenges. And that’s just one example; there are many others, so this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I think that as communities take more ownership and begin to address the issues they see before them, then they can work together with Local Authorities, public sector bodies and regional enterprise agencies to develop solutions catered to those issues. I think that’s going to be the next stage of development in this space, and that we’ll see more of that kind of partnership.

How we helped Newcastleton take control of local assets

Newcastleton is in the rural South of Scotland with its nearest town in England, about 25 miles to the south, in Carlisle. It’s a community that has seen depopulation in recent years as well as experiencing a loss of key services to residents. It has seen young people leave; the housing mix doesn’t meet the needs of local people; it has seen poor transport and poor communications infrastructure; they’ve experienced severe issues with flooding and other environmental problems. It also has a higher level of self-employment because a lot of its economy is tourism based with many people working multiple jobs. It has had several challenges.

CEIS worked with Newcastleton & District Community Trust to engage with the local landowner, Buccleuch Estates, to help them to prepare a business plan that supported a bid to the Scottish Land Fund. From that, they secured nearly £1m that allowed Newcastleton to acquire 750 acres of local land. By acquiring that land, they have now been able to put in place developmental plans that will significantly transform their community.

Their plans will address localised housing needs and local ownership of housing in the housing mix. It will support local enterprise with the recent opening of the new Enterprise Centre in a previously dilapidated building in the centre of town. It will allow them to do things like capitalise on Dark Skies providing services those who want to experience off grid and dark sky tourism by building specific accommodation that will allow them to do that.

They have several progressive ideas to address both local energy supply issues and the need to access affordable, clean energy to address the increasing instance of fuel poverty in the town. Working with a range of private and public sector partners they are looking to put in place new localised energy solutions and renewables. Alongside that, they are looking at solutions for flooding issues that are affecting a significant number of their population.

CEIS is also working with them in conjunction with Interface so that, in time, Newcastleton will use their locally owned forest as a supply of timber that will be felled, cured and planed on site and transformed into low carbon housing in the community.

So, when we talk about benefits for the community, these benefits would not have been realised if the land had remained under private sector ownership. Only by transferring those assets to the community and acquiring them has it empowered the community to use local talent, energy, and ideas to address specific issues that are unique to them.

Thank you for spending the time with us this last month as we covered community wealth building in great detail. If your community needs support, then get in touch and we can help you to envision a new future for the people that live and work in your area.