Local Trust response: Community Wealth Fund technical consultation

In March 2023, government committed to creating a Community Wealth Fund which would be “distributed to communities in deprived areas and released over a long time period, with local residents empowered to make decisions on how to use the money” (DCMS, 2023). As part of that announcement, the government stated its intention to hold a technical consultation on how a Community Wealth Fund should be designed and delivered. The technical consultation was open for responses for four weeks from 22 September until 19 October 2023.

Local Trust put together a response to the consultation based on research and learning from its delivery of the Big Local programme, which provides long term, resident-led investment in 150 communities in England. This paper details Local Trust’s responses to each of the questions included in the technical consultation– and highlights the importance of investment, entrusted to local people, to restore social infrastructure in the most ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods in the country.