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Shared Assets works with landowners and social and community enterprises to develop innovative ways of managing land for the common good, be it parks, farmland, woodlands, waterways, or other spaces. We also look for ways to create an environment that allows these models to thrive. One issue that comes up repeatedly is the crucial role of local authorities, both as landowners and commissioners of land-based services.
Local authorities have the potential to play an important role in the development of land-based social enterprises. They own signiscant amounts of land and commission various land-based services. They also deal with planning applications, and further devolution may yet bring them even greater powers.
In a time of austerity, local authorities are having to think diqerently about how they manage their land, in particular by looking for ways to reduce costs and increase income. Social enterprises have the potential to help achieve this, whilst also using public land to deliver a range of other positive social, environmental, and economic outcomes. The overall goal of our work in this area is to learn from successful relationships between local authorities and social enterprises, and to understand and promote the systems that help produce them.
Over the past year, we have been speaking to local authorities, land-based social enterprises, and other experts on commissioning. We have also been analysing existing research and resources. In March 2016 we hosted a workshop to discuss the issues we’d identised and strategies for tackling them.
This briefing draws on this work, and our wider consultancy work and research, to introduce the key issues we identised. It also proposes a range of strategies for enabling social enterprises and local authorities to work together to make public land work for everyone. Much of what is discussed is also relevant to other land owning public institutions. Some of it may seem obvious, but it is our experience that many problems that arise can be linked to a lack of this knowledge.
