Community Covenant Test and Learn Partnerships
We’re testing a bold approach to local democracy and decision-making alongside our community business partners, learning how local agencies can work directly with communities to share power.
Communities with a seat at the table
We believe communities should have the power to change what matters to them in their local area. One way we’re trialling to unlock this is through community covenants. These are neighbourhood-level power-sharing agreements where local agencies work directly with communities to share power, allocate resources, and make decisions about the future of their local area, together.
Through our Community Covenant Test and Learn Partnerships, we are seeking to understand how this shared decision-making can build community power, ensuring decisions better reflect what matters in the local area.
Meet our first community covenant partner
Fordhall Community Land Initiative
Location: Market Drayton, Shropshire
About the partnership
One of the first of its kind in the UK, this partnership in Market Drayton marks a significant milestone in testing and new ways for communities and councils to genuinely release community power and harness the intelligence of communities.
The community covenant, convened in 2025 by Fordhall Community Land Initiative – England’s first community-owned farm – has devolved decision-making over a community and family hub in the town. It brings together almost 20 different groups and organisations within a rural community to make decisions together.
We are working in partnership to test and learn how this shared decision-making can unlock community power and the knowledge of local people, ensuring decisions better reflect what matters in the local area. These insights will inform future partnerships that are in the pipeline for other places across England.
We are all in agreement, that whatever decision the Market Drayton and Rural Parishes Community Covenant makes, it will be far better than one the council would have made on their own. This decision will be truly rooted within the community, it will be made with evidence from within our community, using the connections and knowledge that only those of us working in the coal-face can have. We will make the decision together and we will share responsibility together.
Could this work in your area?
We’re interested in hearing about and learning from what is happening elsewhere. Is this an approach that could work in your area? Or perhaps you are already testing something similar? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Practice and Innovation Manager, Dan Woolley.
Be inspired
Stories from communities building community power across the country.
Heeley Trust
Southern Maltings: Ware Arts Centre
