How did Big Local areas increase community control over physical assets and spaces and to what effect?

Physical assets and spaces – such as community hubs, halls, playparks, and open spaces – are a highly significant feature and symbol of flourishing neighbourhoods. However, the highly uneven map of these facilities across the country, together with evidence of declining provision, has brought greater public policy attention to the issue over the 2010s and 2020s. Their importance has been evident in the priority given by Big Local partnerships to investing in new and refurbished assets and spaces, aided by the resident-led ethos and long-term approach to funding of the Big Local programme. The programme’s broad outcomes include communities better able to identify local needs, take more effective action in response to them, and make a difference to the needs they prioritise. Many Big Local areas have attempted to achieve these outcomes by supporting new or improved community physical assets and spaces. 

But investing in such facilities is not necessarily the same as controlling them for ongoing community benefit. A range of voluntary and community-sector umbrella bodies, funders, think tanks, and others have promoted the idea of community control over physical assets and spaces, particularly through ownership. Successive governments have given some support to the idea through legislative reform (such as encouraging asset transfers from local authorities and the community rights embodied in the Localism Act 2011) and targeted programmes (such as the Community Ownership Fund from 2021). 

Community control of physical assets and spaces is rarely straightforward and can take several forms. This article examines the ways in which communities in the Big Local programme have sought to gain and sustain control over assets and the challenges in doing so, and reflects on the impact of community control. A companion article considers the importance of physical assets and spaces to communities, in terms of their purpose, roles, and value.

The accessibility and provision of assets and spaces is generally a significant issue for many communities. Someone looking to assess a community’s assets and spaces might ask whether it has access to a range of open, high-quality facilities, which add to the richness of community life, and to the extent that it does, whether this provision can be maintained and developed and its loss or decline prevented. 

Gaining community control in some form is often seen in policy and research as being a prerequisite for securing provision for the community over the long term. Similarly, ceding community control is an evident risk that can lead to land and buildings being left unused or unoccupied, or otherwise being sold or developed for purposes that do not necessarily align with community priorities. Underpinning this perspective is a deep sense that ownership and control matters, not least for the power it affords in making things happen. 

Community control locates responsibility for maintenance and upkeep of assets and spaces in the hands of community members: those expected to care most about them. And most importantly, it ensures that decisions made about physical assets and spaces are controlled by residents, with community benefit uppermost in mind. Together, these aspects of community control can build and demonstrate agency and community power. Polling in 2023 indicated that more than seven in 10 people think that local and national government do not give residents and community groups the freedom to bring about improvements to their local area, and two-thirds trust local community groups over their local council to bring about the change the community needs (Stears and Tryl, 2023: 56, 58). 

Accordingly, the idea of community control of physical assets and spaces is a key element of the growing policy conversation about the importance of ​‘social infrastructure’, defined as ​“those physical spaces in which regular interactions are facilitated between and within the diverse sections of a community, and where meaningful relationships, new forms of trust and feelings of reciprocity are inculcated among local people” (Kelsey and Kenny, 2021: 11). 

To date, however, discussions of social infrastructure have mainly focused on the availability and value of meeting spaces, rather than the question of who owns or controls them. The idea of ​‘community-led (social) infrastructure’ draws in large part upon learning from Big Local (Wilson et al., 2022), and brings to the fore questions of governance, decision-making and community power. The British Academy’s analysis of Covid-19 identified the need to ​“strengthen and expand the community led social infrastructure that underpins the vital services and support structures needed to enhance local resilience, particularly in the most deprived areas” (British Academy, 2021: 8).

How might community control over assets and spaces be gained and maintained? There are no simple answers in the research literature, guidance, or experience in Big Local areas; rather, there are several parts of a process, which can be seen at three different levels.

Community control involves a group of residents establishing and asserting a legitimate right to influence decisions, design, and resources allocated to physical assets and spaces. Being able to demonstrate legitimacy is not straightforward, however; it relies on being recognised by a range of key influential stakeholders. This includes, perhaps most importantly, the community at large, but generally also by other community-based groups and institutions, local voluntary agencies, statutory authorities, and wider funding bodies. And it can frequently be challenged, doubted, and undermined. In other words, legitimacy comes from the long-term, painstaking work of establishing a demonstrable track record of engaging with all parts of a community, working through priorities for community action, securing and managing resources, and being seen by key stakeholders to make a difference locally. 

One Big Local area, for example, built its credibility with partners (particularly the local authority) by embarking on a manageable project: redeveloping an existing playpark. A strategic relationship developed with the local council generated greater trust, such that there was eventually sufficient confidence in the partnership to grant them a long-term lease for the development of a much more ambitious local community hub with sports facilities.

Building local capacity and know-how forms a second level in the process of gaining and maintaining community control of physical assets. In the context of Big Local, this has taken the form of more specialised support and guidance on the complex work around assets, augmenting the general support for developing resident-led community action accessed through the programme. 

This additional support is designed to work alongside the commitment and existing skills of community groups to enhance their knowledge and bolster their confidence around community control of assets. It can also take the form of training or one-to-one technical support on specific issues, such as legal structures, access to finance, negotiating agreements and relationships with key stakeholders. Or it can involve written guidance about multiple aspects of the process – such as ​‘The Community Hub Handbook’ (Locality, 2020) or through the ​‘MyCommunity’ platform, which offers tools, tips and ideas for community action.

Community control of assets exists within a wider context of policy expectations, targeted funding, and a legislative framework. To some degree, these mechanisms offer wider support and encouragement for greater community control. The significance of community assets (and particularly community asset transfer) has been recognised and gathered pace in policy since the mid-2000s (Quirk, 2007; Archer et al., 2019). National legislation on community rights, local authority strategies supporting asset transfer, and mechanisms for ensuring longer-term community control and benefit, such as asset locks (legal safeguards ensuring assets and profits of an organisation are used for social or community benefit, not private gain) can provide positive signals for community groups. In particular, the importance of asset locks for securing a community interest has often been recognised in funders’ expectations and stipulations ahead of the release of significant funds for purchase or refurbishment of an asset. 

For Local Trust, Big Local partnerships were required, among other things, to create a separate registered legal entity for managing any such asset, and to put an asset lock in place to protect it for the benefit of the community (Local Trust, 2021). Such requirements have helped ensure communities gain and maintain control, although not all areas were able to do so: by the middle of 2020, only two-thirds of the 73 Big Local areas who had purchased or funded the creation of any significant physical assets had protections in place to ensure the asset’s long-term use for the community.

Communities must overcome many hurdles to secure physical assets and spaces. However, there are also challenges beyond this in terms of sustaining community control. Alongside asset locks and long leases, experience from Big Local suggests there are three main areas for consideration: community support, stakeholder relationships, and financial sustainability.

First, building widespread resident support for community facilities and spaces is regarded in the literature as an essential starting point – not least to help secure funding – and an ongoing source of legitimacy. Community assets and spaces can easily become depleted and threatened if they are disregarded and not used or valued by residents. Such facilities can become liabilities very quickly without community support, can fall into disrepair, and face calls for clearance and alternative land-use plans, such as housing or commercial development. Several Big Local areas have had to work hard to gain and maintain the confidence and support of the local community, particularly where ambitious projects designed to meet identified needs faced setbacks or delays. In practice, community support can help energise activities in hubs and open spaces, making them vibrant places that residents want to visit, and can help groups running them feel confident that they are heading in the right direction.

Second, nurturing strong relationships with a wide variety of other organisations, including statutory authorities, is noted in the literature as a key ingredient in the ongoing success of community hubs and open spaces. As well as reinforcing the value of community ownership and control amongst stakeholders, these relationships can create possibilities for collaborative activities to benefit the local community (by providing local access to services and activities), the assets themselves (by helping to generate income), and the external organisations alike (by extending the reach and impact of their services). Such collaborations can take a variety of forms, from information sharing to formal partnerships, but all serve to create new ways to deliver services closer to communities. A flagship purpose-built community hub in one Big Local area, for example, enabled residents to access linked services in one venue, including benefits and employment advice, community safety, and health services.

Third, across the literature, the most significant and intractable challenge facing groups responsible for assets and spaces is how to ensure they can cover their costs and pay their way. Doubts about financial sustainability can undermine the longer-term viability of community assets and spaces, potentially leading to the idea of community control being called into question. Research on community hubs in general suggests an ongoing, twin-sided challenge of controlling the costs associated with running and maintaining buildings and open spaces, including spiralling energy costs, while generating sufficient income to cover outgoings and provide for more significant repairs and improvements (Trup et al., 2019).

Sustainability of community hubs is enhanced through a cross-subsidising mixture of income sources, from renting office space, charging for some activities, hiring out meeting rooms and halls for events, and grants for specific projects. These findings reflect much of the experience in Big Local areas. However, chasing funds to keep community assets and spaces functioning can risk ​‘mission drift’ – that is, projects may not align so closely with community needs and priorities, such that the basis for community control of decision-making is compromised. In one Big Local area, for this reason, a resident steering-group oversaw the operation of a purpose-built community hub through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreed with a local community trust that owned and ran the building. The steering group and MOU ensured that the hub would remain open and affordable to all residents, and that community benefit would not be overridden by the need to generate income.

Why should policymakers, funders, and practitioners take community control of physical assets and spaces seriously? Why should they be prepared to invest, not only in the provision of such assets and spaces, but in the processes, mechanisms, and support needed to ensure community control? While such bodies may feel more compelled by their own significant service pressures and constraints to engage with communities and deliver services in new ways, there is a positive case for community ownership and control to be made. 

There are two broad ways to answer these questions. However, reflections and evidence from the Big Local programme and the literature so far are still quite limited. To some extent, the case for community control still involves something of a leap of faith, albeit buttressed by some compelling arguments. 

The first answer to the question of community control is that it makes a difference to communities – both in terms of more responsive local services generating positive outcomes (for example, in health and wellbeing, or employment and skills), and more flourishing and resilient communities. There are lots of examples from across the Big Local programme demonstrating these kinds of impacts, although the extent and way in which community control acts as a significant factor is perhaps less clearly identified. Making sure decision-making is in the hands of communities is certainly thought to be important. For example, community-led or owned assets have been argued to build the confidence, self-belief, and ambition of local residents, to open up the possibilities to try new things, and create new initiatives (Locality, 2020: 4). 

A second response to the question of the impact of community control is arguably more fundamental. Though it features less in the literature, its significance is perhaps more tacitly assumed. Community control of physical assets and spaces might be as much worth promoting in and of itself – as a feature more of local democratic participation and an expression of community power – as in terms of the demonstrable impact it might have. In this sense, it forms part of the case for rebuilding trust, and against long histories of communities being neglected, disrespected, and ​“done to” (Stears and Tryl, 2023).