Devolution White Paper: A real moment for community power

By Annoushka Deighton, Community Campaign Leader

Today, we’ve seen the clearest indication yet that the government is ready to really hand over control. In its White Paper, Labour acknowledges the urgent need for a shift in how power operates in this country. It is a step towards giving people who really understand and care about their places – who have the most “skin in the game” – the opportunity to shape their futures.

Crucially, it has promised to introduce a Community Right to Buy, which would give local people stronger tools to shape the future of their local areas, including through exercising a first right of refusal when community assets come up for sale.

This is something We’re Right Here has been calling for since we began, driven by our own experiences of the powerful benefits of community ownership of buildings and assets, and the many barriers that still stand in the way.

Like all of the changemakers behind We’re Right Here, I speak from first-hand experience. In 2015, a group of us took on the ownership of Stretford Public Hall, a beautiful but neglected building in our town centre.

The council initially planned to sell it to the highest bidder. After months of advocacy, we persuaded them to give us six months to present a business case for community ownership. The response from local residents was overwhelming: more than 500 people stepped up, helping with everything from leafleting to financial planning.

We knew our monetary offer to the council was much lower than the property developers, but we also knew that our vision would offer so much more in long-term social and economic benefits. Thankfully, the local authority agreed to give us a chance.

Ten years on the hall is thriving. Our excellent staff and over 100 volunteers create a welcoming space. Every day it is filled with activities and events that make Stretford a better place to live. There are cultural activities; children’s theatre, choirs, art events, music and singalongs bringing the community together. And it is a hub for much-needed frontline work; a warm hub, ESOL classes, emergency support and advice centre. We run these more affordably and arguably at a higher quality than the local authority could in the current climate. Meanwhile commercial conferences, weddings and meetings provide jobs as well as help to fund the whole project.

The impact goes beyond the hall. We have changed the perception of Stretford as a place with a failing town centre into somewhere people want to live and invest in. The once empty shop units now are bustling with new bars and restaurants.

It wasn’t easy to get here, it has taken a huge amount of work filled with stress and potential failure. Sadly, so often other projects like ours fall at the first hurdle. Councils – driven by short-term financial stressors – can turn down reasonable requests for listing buildings as community assets and there is no right of appeal. Six months is often too short a period to create the business case and raise the capital needed to purchase or restore buildings. Private overseas landlord are ‘land banking’ assets, leaving what could be vibrant buildings empty and rotting in our high streets.

This has repercussions. You can’t sell off your swimming pools and wonder about how to ease the burden on the health service. You can’t dismantle community spaces and then be surprised when social cohesion falls apart. But a new Community Right to Buy, designed and implemented correctly, will ensure that more community organisations and groups are able to protect those spaces and run them for the benefit of their whole community.

More generally, the White Paper represents a real moment for the community power movement. It is a step towards giving people who really understand and care about their places – who have the most “skin in the game” – the opportunity to shape their futures.

There is more to be done if Angela Rayner and her colleagues are going to change politics so decisions are “made with communities, not done to them”. We’re Right Here will continue to push for further progress. But for now, this should be celebrated—for the doors it opens and the foundation it lays for stronger, more resilient communities, with places to call their own.