Community Ownership and Management of Assets Programme

Land and buildings that you care about in your community, such as your local park, your town hall, local pub or shop can be managed and even owned using these tools for community asset ownership and management.

COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT OF ASSETS PROGRAMME (COMA)

The Community Ownership and Management of Assets programme (COMA) supports partnerships between local public bodies (such as local authorities) and community groups (including parish councils) to develop multiple asset transfer or single, ground breaking asset projects. Direct support and pre-feasibility grants will be available for up to 50 partnership areas through COMA in 2015/16.

What does the COMA programme offer?

The COMA programme will support 50 partnerships between local public bodies and community groups (including parish councils) to develop multiple asset transfer or single, ground breaking asset projects. The programme will help local public bodies and their communities to use their assets in a strategic way, focusing on better outcomes for the community.

The programme opens in April 2015 to all areas in England, with a focus on areas including urban, rural and coastal, which tackle a variety of themes including deprivation, lack of public/community spaces, management of green space, abandoned buildings and under used land. Partnership areas with a clear commitment to partnership working are invited to apply. Pre-feasibility grants of up to £10,000 per organisation will be available to organisations within the partnership areas.

COMA is being delivered for DCLG by Locality in association with the Local Government Association, the National Association of Local Councils, Community Matters, Plunkett Foundation, CAN, Ubele, Voice4Change, Civic Voice, Shared Assets, Oxford Brookes University, Knightstone Housing Association and Anthony Collins Solicitors. (Please note: Groundwork UK will be managing the grant administration element of the programme).

COMMUNITY ASSET TRANSFER

Community Asset Transfer involves the transfer of ownership and/or management of land or buildings from a statutory body (such as a local council) to a community based organisation or group (such as a charity or community interest company) at less than market value for local social, economic or environmental benefit.

A number of public bodies, in particular local authorities, have the power to dispose of land and buildings at less than market value where they are able to show that doing so will result in local improvements to social, economic or environmental wellbeing. The legislation that allows local authorities to do this is the General Disposal Consent (England) 2003.

COMMUNITY RIGHT TO BID

The Community Right to Bid allows communities to nominate land or buildings to be added to a local list of Assets of Community Value by their local authority, and if the listed asset comes up for sale, local community groups can ‘pause’ the sale for a period of time in order to raise the finance to make a bid to buy it.

The Community Right to Bid allows communities and parish councils to nominate buildings or land for listing by the local authority as an Asset of Community Value. An asset can be listed if its main use currently benefits the community (or it did so in the recent past).  Listed assets remain on the list for up to five years. If a listed asset is sold during this time, a moratorium (pause) on the sale process (of up to six months) may be invoked, providing local community groups with a window of time to raise the finance to make a bid to buy the asset on the open market.

COMMUNITY RIGHT TO RECLAIM LAND

The Community Right to Reclaim Land allows communities to challenge local councils and some other public bodies to release their unused and underused land.

For more information, visit http://mycommunity.org.uk/programme/community-assets/