Community Assets: Government Assistance
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to support local authorities to maintain (a) community centres, (b) libraries and (c) other community assets in (i) Leicester East constituency and (ii) England.
Answered by Alex Norris
The Government recognises the vital role of community spaces in Leicester and in England as a whole and wants to see them thrive. The Assets of Community Value (ACV) scheme provides communities with a route to nominate any building or land which furthers the social wellbeing or interests of the community and bid to buy the ACV to protect it for community use. Alongside this the Community Asset Transfer scheme, which supports the transfer of ownership and/or management of publicly owned land and assets from a local authority to a community organisation.
As part of the English Devolution Bill, we will legislate to introduce a strong new ‘right to buy’ for valued community assets which will empower local people to bring community spaces back into community ownership.
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