If we use this website to identify our "Assets of Community Value", communities will exert more power over local land

A large-scale painting on grass made with biodegradable pigments, part of the “Beyond Walls” project by the French artist Saype, in Geneva in September.Credit...Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The politics of land control in England is tight (it’s somewhat better in Scotland). And if the opportunity comes up for communities to redress the balance of “right to buy” in their favour, it has to be noticed and promoted.

So as a crucial tool towards that, here’s The Plunkett Foundations’s Keep It In The Community website and database. As they explain:

Keep It in the Community (KIITC) is an online database of all community assets in England, such as pubs, shops and land, that have been nominated or registered as an Asset of Community Value (ACV).

First set up by mySociety, Keep It in the Community is now hosted by the Plunkett Foundation – one of the organisations involved in its original conception. The information on KIITC is supplied by members of the public and checked by Plunkett against council records.

The top 3 types of asset registered on the Keep It in the Community register are:

• Village halls

• Green spaces

• Pubs

Other types of asset include shops, cafes, post offices, sports clubs, allotments, religious buildings and libraries. There is data relating to 6,700 assets on Keep It in the Community register, of which 3,700 have an active ACV registration.

Why is it important to register these Assets of Community Value? They explain further:

A building or space registered as an Asset of Community Value with a local council is protected under the Community Right to Bid. If a registered asset comes up for sale, the community will have six months to put in an offer to buy it.

Although the Community Right to Bid buys time for the community to try to take ownership of their asset, their offer may be refused by the owner in favour of a higher bid from elsewhere.

Data collected from KIITC will inform our work to campaign for the reform the Community Right to Bid into a Right to Buy, with a “right to first refusal for the community” on the asset.

Reform is needed now more than ever, with assets increasingly coming up for sale for development in the economic fallout from the pandemic, leaving neighbourhoods at risk of losing vital social services.

Without adequate legal protection assets are still at risk of being lost.

More here. And here’s the searchable database. The Scottish Government’s Land Reform legislation site is here - with stronger rights for the community’s right to buy (under sustainable criteria). Here’s the Daily Alternative’s keyword archive on land reform. You might also be interested in Guy Shrubsole’s Who Owns England? blog.