Asset based community development is a large and growing movement that considers people as the primary building blocks of sustainable community development.
Put it another way, this is about giving voice, choice, control and real power to the people in our communities:
Building on the skills of local residents, the power of local associations and the support of local institutions, this is about drawing upon existing community strengths to build stronger communities for the future.
This is, of course, anathema to Welsh Labour’s, which is about state organisation of society and top down control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction.
Since the 2011 UK Localism Act, we have campaigned for its Community empowering provisions to be enacted in Wales.
However, we had to wait until 2015 for the Welsh Labour Government to set out its plans for “Community ownership”- a watered down version of the opportunities available in England, leaving Communities in Wales with a far smaller voice than their English counter parts.
Welsh Labour has now put off proposals for Community Groups to become involved in the delivery of local services until after the 2016 Assembly Elections proposals which still exclude a statutory right for communities to challenge Council services or bid for Local Authority property.
The 2011 Localism Act introduced Neighbourhood Development Plans that allow local people to get the right type of development for their community –which must still meet the needs for the wider area and take into account the Local Council’s assessment of housing and other development needs.
Detailed or general plans identify what local people want, where new homes and offices should be built, what they should look like - but this is denied to people in Wales.
Welsh Conservatives would introduce “Neighbourhood Planning” including a Community Right to Build, and Neighbourhood Development Plans.
This would allow communities to bring forward small-scale community-led developments such as shops, services or affordable housing - and allow communities to show where they would like a new development to happen and what it should look like.
By April 2014, 1,000 communities in England had taken the first formal steps for Development Plans, 80 had been sent out to consultation and 13 had been passed at local referenda.
These new powers in Wales would engage communities at a local level, giving them a voice to shape the future of local authority services, assets and planning in their neighbourhood.
Consider the Private Rented Sector.
Quoting the National Landlord Association, a Committee Report at the end of the last Assembly stated “there should be Wales wide Private Rented Sector access agencies for vulnerable people like Cefni Lettings – a partnership of trust between the private sector and Local Authorities, with landlords and Third Sector implementing and delivering more for less rather than replicating for higher cost”.
They told me that this required a new way of working and true partnership with the public sector, a period of transition for the supply to equalise.
Instead, this Welsh Government introduced anti-business regulation for all landlords, hitting investment and supply, rather than targeted enforcement against bad and criminal landlords and support for the worst-affected tenants.
As the Centre for Social Justice Housing Report states, “we need to redirect spending on temporary accommodation to a new breed of social letting agencies, providing long term security and support for vulnerable renters, while also increasing the number of landlords willing to rent to those on benefits”.
The Auditor General states that Councils need to consider alternative models of delivery, but found that although some Councils are managing to provide key services with less money, many Councils are too slow in reviewing alternative methods of delivery and missing out on opportunities to reduce expenditure.
For example, he found “that 18 of the 22 Welsh councils reduced expenditure on supporting leisure services, with the greatest savings where councils had transferred leisure facilities to Community Trusts. However, Flintshire had the second largest increase in expenditure, and yet one of the biggest reductions in people visiting leisure centres, when 14 councils had seen a visitor increase”.
In response to big Welsh Government cuts to homelessness prevention and Local Voluntary Council Funding, Community based organisations state “this is a false economy which will” devastate their ability to support more user led, preventative and cost effective services”.
Is it any wonder that Wales has the lowest prosperity, greatest child poverty and highest worklessness in the UK?
It’s time to turn the power thing upside down, design the system backwards and set the people free.