Community resources UK news

• Empowering local people to bring community spaces back into community ownership, consult.defra.gov.uk, (consultation document, p.26) (Jan 31, 2025) — The UK government says that through the English Devolution Bill, it will introduce a strong new ‘right to buy’ for valued community assets, such as empty shops, pubs and community spaces. "Community Right to Buy will help local people acquire valued community spaces if they come up for sale, keeping these assets in the hands of the community."
• ‘People feel a sense of ownership’: the growth of community composting, theguardian.com (Jan 23, 2025) — residents of an English village build their own composting site
• Frome residents win five-year battle for community-led housing project, theguardian.com (Jan 23, 2025) — “What’s really exciting for me is that it’s not actually about the amount of commercial space or the affordable housing it will provide – it’s about the sense of confidence and agency and possibility that I think it will give us as a community.” Fiona Barrows, Frome town councillor
• West Peckham residents buy The Larkins historic pub, BBC News (Jan 04, 2025)
• Limpley Stoke pub saved by the community sets reopening date, BBC News (Jan 01, 2025)

• SPRING: From its ambition to create an "urban croft" (or food producer) in the heart of Leith, Earth In Common is becoming a powerful CAN, Daily Alternative (Nov 21, 2024)

• ‘My Southport shop was looted by rioters, then saved by strangers’, BBC News (Aug 11, 2024)
• Liverpool library torched by far-right rioters raises repair funds, theguardian.com (Aug 06, 2024)
• ‘Building something better’: the UK residents retrofitting their homes amid the climate crisis, theguardian.com (Aug 03, 2024) — From weekly skills-sharing to rewilding streets, communities are working to improve the planet while bolstering the health of people

• Value in the meantime: the social enterprise transforming London’s empty buildings, positive.news (Jul 23, 2024)
• North Northamptonshire Council given £3.8m to reduce carbon footprint of three key facilities, BBC News (Jul 13, 2024)
• Council in Surrey launching an action fund for projects which help tackle the impact of climate change, BBC News (Jul 13, 2024) — Elmbridge Borough Council say the fund is for projects that make a "tangible difference" to education around carbon emissions, biodiversity enhancement, and energy, water, and waste reduction

• What are the embryonic initiatives that quickly and radically transform society? Maybe ours will be gardens, suggests Greg Frey, Daily Alternative (Jun 06, 2024)

• How rental ‘libraries of things’ have become the new way to save money, theguardian.com (May 06, 2024)

• Library of Things helping Charlton Kings residents save money, BBC News (Apr 11, 2024)

• All hands to the pumps: the colourful rise of community-owned pubs, positive.news (Mar 05, 2024)
• Launch of a new political project from the Alternative Global— SPRING, Alternative Editorial (Mar 01, 2024)

• Pay as you feel café celebrates busy start as community hub, timeslocalnews.co.uk (Feb 28, 2024)
• A laughter cafe, a healing cafe, a soup cafe, a mending cafe... Anything but yet another coffee cafe, pleads Bridget McKenzie, Daily Alternative (Feb 21, 2024)
• The Real Front Line, Alternative Editorial (Feb 04, 2024)

• "Tech for Today - and for Tomorrow" makes a resounding case that community tech can drive change in Britain, Daily Alternative (Jan 31, 2024)
• Labour mulls plan to boost local buyouts of community sites in England, theguardian.com (Jan 09, 2024)
• The community buyout projects leading Scotland’s self-help revolution, theguardian.com (Jan 01, 2024)

• Plans approved to transform Lincolnshire golf course into wildlife haven, birdguides.com/news (Dec 30, 2023)
• Greenwich: Closed pub reopens as community hub, BBC News (Dec 15, 2023)

• St Andrews Men's Shed, Now officially based at Craigtoun, friendsofcraigtoun.org.uk/news (Nov 29, 2023)
• Only shop on Lismore saved after community buyout, BBC News (Nov 26, 2023)

• Barking and Dagenham Giving are putting the decisions for social enterprise investment into the hands of residents, The Daily Alternative (Oct 26, 2023)

• A checklist for map builders, by Oliver Sylvester-Bradley, murmurations.network (Sep 26, 2023)
• Astronauts launch from Community space, neighbourhooddemocracy.org (Sep 19, 2023)
• Why more powerful communities are more connected communities, thecaresfamily.org.uk (Sep 04, 2023)

• An ordinary hope helping to power communities across Britain, ucl.ac.uk (May 23, 2023)

• Levelling up perspectives from the community to the national level, powertochange.org.uk (Mar 20, 2023) — Report on 'levelling up' from Power to Change reveals that some progress has been made for communities, but there is little impact being made, leading to public pessimism.

• Alter Natives: Deana Wildgoose from the Coalville CAN, on the creativity and joy released when communities take over buildings, The Daily Alternative (Jan 11, 2023)

• "We just flippin' do it": how a rural cooperative from Lancashire built the fastest broadband in Britain, The Daily Alternative (Sep 21, 2022)
• Saving the high street: three ways community businesses can kickstart a revival, The Conversation (Aug 25, 2022)
• Communities need a say in reviving 800 dead spaces across London, Siân Berry, london.gov.uk (Jun 06, 2022)
• In a hardscrabble Liverpool location, a community "pantry" (not a food bank) feeds both bodies and souls, The Daily Alternative (May 11, 2022)
• Islington Climate Emergency Centre – a movement is growing, realmedia.press (Mar 29, 2022) — "The science is clear. It's not those fighting to put food on the table who need to fix this mess, right? It's the high consuming communities, high consuming individuals who need to act furthest and fastest." Tom Bailey, TakeTheJump.org
• What do we mean by public luxury? Glorious spaces that people can use and enjoy freely, cutting consumption and increasing connection, The Alternative UK (Jan 28, 2022)

• Community Ownership Fund, Policy paper, Mar 3, 2021...^[1] From summer 2021 community groups will be able to bid for up to £250,000 matched-funding to help them buy or take over local community assets at risk of being lost, to run as community-owned businesses. The first bidding round for the Community Ownership Fund will open by June 2021.

• Social sustainability prize for Knowle West outdoor community hub, knowlewest.co.uk (May 24, 2021)

• Tomorrow Today Streets, Creating essential micro-infrastructure for post Covid 19 neighbourhoods, TessyBritton^[2] May 30, 2020.
• Who can be trusted to develop us? Yes, we the people. But local Trusts have been strengthening communities for decades. Covid-19 shows it's their time. Pat Kane. May 10, 2020...^[3]

💚 We don't need institutes, we need constitutes… and they should live in a Makar House, Pat Kane.^[4] Mar 16, 2020.

References

• Library of Things is helping UK go zero waste.^[1] Nov 29, 2019
• A "fab city" aims to produce everything - energy, commodities, food - that it consumes. And Plymouth is one of them. Nov 25, 2019^[2]
• "Play Out Til Tea" is a great Birmingham Impact Hub idea - but their "neighbourhood of the future" is even better.^[3] Jul 21, 2019

• Hazel Sheffield tells stories of communities ambitiously owning their own assets, like Portpatrick Harbour in Scotland, Daily Alternative (Jul 30, 2019)

• From Impact Hub Birmingham to Civic Square.^[4] Jun 16
• The library of things: could borrowing everything from drills to disco balls cut waste and save money?^[5] Apr 24
• Every One Every Day, new makerspace opens in London.^[6] Mar 20
• Could this community project be the start of a national transformation? George Monbiot.^[7] Jan 24
• Nesta's 'ShareTown' interactive shows what a cooperative, tech-enabled economy might look like. Jan 3

References

• The Common Room — designing a future for all ages, Oct 2...^[1]
• Britain's shared spaces are vanishing, leaving us a nation of cliques, John Harris, Sep 4^[2]
• What kind of space can welcome a diverse community? Apr 28...^[3]

💚 We need civic operating systems to manage the social fabric for healthy communities – plus a social app store of tools, David Wilcox, August 17^[4]

• Why Smart City London should be a #NetworkedCity: participatory, sharing, inclusive and accessible, Feb 9^[5]

References

• "Human beings being human: Part two of Connecting well" by David Robinson, Oct 20, 2017...^[1]
• How the Share Shed in the UK is Building Community, Jul 5, 2017...^[2]
• What Does it Mean to Unlock the Next Economy? Jun 7, 2017...^[3] "If churches survive – architecturally and even as places of worship – it will be because they have become a social resource."
• Creating thriving community hubs: What does it take? May 2, 2017...^[4]
• How a British Library is Fighting Loneliness with a Public Living Room, Dec 6, 2016...^[5]
• Top findings from the open dataset of UK makerspaces, April 24, 2015...^[6]

References