Creating a live map of empty commercial spaces in London & findings from ‘Act Local: Empowering London's neighbourhoods' research - Jo Corfield & Joe Wills (Centre for London)

Hinweis der Redaktion

1. - Aim of the project was to investigate how people can influence what happens in their neighbourhoods and how we can support them to do that - To that end, we surveyed recent developments across the city, and commissioned a range of essays to explore particular elements of neighbourhood governance and empowerment in depth
2. Why should we care? Neighbourhoods shape our lives and outcomes in fundamental ways – employment, consumption, identities and social connections Despite their importance, formal power at the level of the neighbourhood is relatively weak, compared to local or national government – clear mismatch Mismatch apparent to the public – Recent polling demonstrates that Londoners want more influence over how decisions are made about local issues (DCMS, 2018) Witholding influence causes problems – chart on the right demonstrates the legitimacy issues at stake for public bodies
3. What has been happening? Talk through some key developments 1990s neighbourhood policy about renewal of deprived areas e.g. Single Regeneration Budgets – focus on partnerships and participation BIDs targeted at local business communities – aiming to give them more of a say in how their areas were governed 2007 legislation was passed which allowed for new Parish Councils to be created in London 2011 Localism Act intended to create a shift of power away from the central state and towards communities. Range of ‘community rights’ created which would facilitate this transfer of power
4. - Aim of the project was to investigate how people can influence what happens in their neighbourhoods and how we can support them to do that - To that end, we surveyed recent developments across the city, and commissioned a range of essays to explore particular elements of neighbourhood governance and empowerment in depth
5. - Some more successful than others
6. One of the ‘Community Rights’ - Local people can set up a group called a neighbourhood forum in order to create a plan for their area Increasing no. of forums in first few years slowing down 13 adopted neighbourhood plans
7. Taking off across the city – but not evenly distributed – concentration in some boroughs like Camden – whereas the outer East London boroughs have seen less activity
8. Area-based, business-led bodies with the ability to raise funds to be spent in the local area Could be considered a type of neighbourhood governance, representing primarily the business community in areas of high commercial activity Significant in London – reflecting the importance of commerce and numbers of jobs – Westminster has roughly 4x the number of employees than residents – felt that this needed more representation Some hesitation around business involvement in local governance – but BIDs are about providing additional local leadership, not replacing existing civic functions
9. What has been less successful? Attempt to reintroduce a more local tier of representative democracy to reflect importance of neighbourhoods – common outside London, but haven’t operated in capital since 1930s Only one has been established, in Queen’s Park Another attempt to establish failed – in Spitalfields and Banglatown, Tower Hamlets Particular factors behind Queen’s Park success – history of participatory civic culture, particular local political balance, defined urban fabric and sense of neighbourhood Maybe not replicable across the city
10. Another one of the Community Rights The intention behind the Community Right to Bid was to help local groups purchase land or buildings with a deemed community function when they are threatened with being sold off However, it has proven largely ineffectual in London – of 337 Assets listed across the city, there has been only 1 purchase by a community group as a result of the legislation – the Ivy House in Nunhead
11. Aside from parish councils, wards are the closest proxy for neighbourhoods as a unit of governance in London’s system, but there are issues with how effectively they can be represented Significant local government reforms (Local Government Act 2000 under Blair), have strengthened local executive leadership, but didn’t boost backbench roles or public participation in decision making Our research provides examples of where strong leadership from a Mayor can help to support neighbourhood influence, but its not built into the system
12. Changes in public funding impacting neighbourhood empowerment in lots of different ways One is the loss of community spaces and places for participation which were supported by councils Some evidence of cuts to dedicated ward budgets Other knock on effects for grant funding for community and voluntary organisations – significant number reliant on public funding
13. Another barrier to devolution of power to community level is cultural – our research contains examples of reticence to hand over power That could be from a resistance to the principle, or even just because it makes the job more complicated On the other side, we’ve also found that local participatory culture amongst communities takes time to develop and needs supporting – it wont just happen
14. Procedure can also represent a barrier In some instances this is a result of the way that legislation has been enacted – Queen’s Park told us that the bureaucracy and amount of work required to establish new parish councils may be one reason they aren’t more common In other instances, the problem can just be deviating from normal working processes – so where a council might want to involve communities in decision making, they can be unsure how to actually go about it
15. London’s property and land market present big issues for neighbourhoods wanting a greater control over their built environment Purchasing community assets under the current framework extremely difficult – legislation does not provide any sort of discount, and landowner is not obliged to give preference to community groups, so they can sell to the highest bidder. Almost impossible to compete on the open market with commercial interests.
16. What can we do about this? We are calling for a reboot of the agenda – and have made recommendations to start tackling some of these barriers to neighbourhood empowerment
17. Local authorities should make a formal resolution to devolve power to neighbourhoods. This could involve demonstrating how neighbourhoods have been taken into account when taking decisions, in a similar way to other statutory considerations such as an equalities impact. It could also involve producing clear guidance on how to take decisions collaboratively with local community groups Sharing power requires sharing of resources to be meaningful. Even within pressed local authority finances, there is scope for devolving existing funding streams to the neighbourhood level. Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy is one available mechanism. We propose that local authorities raise the proportion of Neighbourhood CIL to 25%, even where there is no Neighbourhood Plan in place, and that they take decisions on how to spend it in collaboration with local groups, beyond the required minimum of ‘consultation and engagement’. Longer term, we are calling for the government to invest seriously in community empowerment. One way to finance this would be a Community Wealth Fund, a civil society initiative which involves using unclaimed financial assets to provide the capital required for long-term asset-based community development. Centre for London endorses this idea. The Community Right to Bid is ineffectual in London because local groups must contend with inflated property prices in the city. Community groups have been unable to use the 6 month ‘pause’ on sales to raise sufficient funds to buy Assets of Community Value. Government should tip the balance back into communities favour by making the ‘Community Right to Bid’ into a ‘Community Right to Buy’, in a similar way to the Scottish legislation, where community groups have first refusal on the sale of a building which has been listed as an ACV. Finally, our research has highlighted that there is a need for a ‘sub’-borough tier of community governance, but also that some of the existing mechanisms haven’t taken off. We have seen some examples of where flexible local governance with the ability to raise local revenue has been a success, in the shape of Business Improvement Districts. We propose building on this model, but with an explicit community focus, to pilot ‘Community Improvement Districts’, or ‘Pop-up Parishes’. This would involve residents coming together to establish a group, around defined local issues, with an ability to levy a precept on council tax payers, with lighter procedural requirements than existing parish councils. We think that, together, these recommendations could go some way to helping London’s neighbourhoods and communities become fuller partners in shaping our city. I’m very much looking forward to hearing the panel’s thoughts on the matter.