On 3rd March, the UK government announced a new £150 million Community Ownership Fund to help ensure that communities ‘continue benefiting from the local facilities, community assets and amenities most important to them’.
See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/community-ownership-fund/community-ownership-fund#eligible-projects
The Fund will be launched in June 2021 and follows on from the Community Asset Transfer programme in which members of Sustainable Communities supported a number of local communities across England to take over and manage community assets. To quote from the recent government announcement :
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. In exceptional cases, up to £1 million matched-funding will be available to help establish a community-owned sports club or help buy a sports grounds at risk of being lost without community intervention.
The Community Ownership Fund will help ensure that important parts of the social fabric, such as pubs, sports clubs, theatres and post office buildings, can continue to play a central role in towns and villages across the UK. This will form part of the UK government’s levelling up agenda, helping support recovery and building opportunity, with funding weighted towards places where community assets can make the most difference‘
Please contact Sustainable Communities if as a community group you need help, including with match funding or governance, in preparing a Bid to the fund.