Yesterday the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act passed into law.
It’s a significant moment, and one that has rightly been welcomed by communities and community business. I want to join that celebration full heartedly, recognising the years of collective work that has brought us here.
But moments like this are only ever the beginning of the story, not the end. Rights on their own are not enough.
The impact economy – community businesses, social enterprises, mission-driven investors and patient funders – is the engine that converts legislative opportunity into local reality.
A Community Right to Buy only works if communities can access the finance to act on it. New neighbourhood governance arrangements only transform places if they are community-rooted with the capacity, confidence and capital to step up.
That’s why the Act must be read alongside and backed by a concerted effort to grow the impact economy at every level: local, regional and national.
Only then can community businesses make the most of these changes to help people have more say in the decisions that affect them, build meaningful connections, and contribute to prosperous local economies.
What this means for communities
There’s something genuinely exciting about what this Act sets in motion.
The devolution agenda has already unlocked brilliant opportunities for social businesses. We’ve seen a growing caucus of local leaders who understand and invest in the potential of their social businesses – from the West Midlands’ innovative social economy clusters to Liverpool City Region’s investment in Kindred, and the North East’s recently launched High Street Commission.
But the new Act takes this further creating the potential for stronger local decision-making by requiring guidance for neighbourhood governance arrangements to be rolled out in every part of the country.
For me, the opportunity is clear. Neighbourhood governance arrangements that flow from this legislation should give communities a real say in shaping the places they live in, forging connections and making decisions, not just being consulted.
I’ve seen first-hand what that can look like through our Community Covenant Test and Learn Partnership with Fordhall Farm in Market Drayton. Where the community has not just offered an opinion but decided – in equal partnership – with the local authority the location and delivery plan for a new community and family hub – and even coordinated volunteers to get it up and running.
The Community Right to Buy can and should also catalyse a new generation of community owned assets.
This measure above all, is one to celebrate as the product of a movement working together for real change. It’s a big moment for communities, for coalition-builders like the We’re Right Here campaign, and for organisations like Power to Change and countless others who have campaigned for it over many years.
It matters because community ownership is not a nice to have, it’s a tested vehicle for supporting local economic and social renewal, building community power and enabling more effective, preventative public service delivery.
Take the example of The Haven Community Hub in Southend-on-Sea. A former department store, now a place where residents, older adults, families and carers come together – for a coffee, an NHS appointment, a wellbeing session, or specialist dementia support. It welcomes thousands of local people through its doors each month and has helped breathe life back into a struggling high street. What we’re seeing is compelling, on the ground evidence of community-led high street renewal, hand in hand with innovative public service delivery.
I reflect on these stories often. They show the scale of what’s possible when places and communities have more ownership, more confidence and more control.
A movement, not a moment
I’m incredibly proud of the part played by Power to Change in shaping these changes, alongside many valued national organisations, partners, grassroots initiatives, and community businesses and the leaders driving change in their communities.
These changes mark real progress, but there is more to be done to build the future that communities want to see: local economies that work for people, places and spaces that are strong and connected, and public services designed around people’s lives.
That starts with removing the barriers that hold community businesses back. That means ensuring the powers for local governance and ownership set out in the Act are ones that communities can actually use where they live.
It also means shifting the mindsets and behaviours of public and private sector institutions so that power is genuinely shared with communities.
While rights and duties are drawn up in Whitehall, it’s relationships between institutions and communities, across the country, that determine outcomes on the ground.
Unlocking the finance communities need means growing the impact economy, bringing together patient capital, match funding, community share offers and social investment so that the rights this Act creates can actually be exercised
Which takes us to the final shift. We need to change how we work together, by building closer partnerships across the movement to plan and deliver real, and lasting change.
If we get this right, communities will be stronger and more connected in their places. They’ll design and deliver services shaped by the people that use them, and drive local economic renewal from the ground up.
