assets of community value

I find this really sad. I have argued over the last 18 months that a rural sovereign wealth fund could create a new income stream for the sector. It could do this using pooled surplus public sector assets. This article shows how instead local authority resources are still being sold off in a piecemeal and un-strategic way. It tells us:

More than 4,000 council assets are being sold by local authorities every year, with the majority going to private developers rather than being transferred to community ownership, according to the local communities charity Locality.

After making freedom of information requests to all 353 local councils in England, Locality says in its report The Great British Sell Off that, although there are no official figures for the number of sales or details of who bought the buildings in question, it appears that councils sold a large number of buildings to private developers every year between 2012 and 2016.

Less than half of councils in England have strategies to support community ownership, Locality says, which shows a “significant lack of planning and a short-term approach to making critical decisions about public buildings and spaces being permanently lost to the community”.

Good maps around  Hinterland this week. This map is particularly interesting following our visit to the Fox and Hounds in Ennerdale which is now run by an industrial and provident society made up of local people. You can watch Peter Maher its leader talk about it here. The map itself shows the location of 100 pubs a number rural which have been listed as assets of community value.