Three key takeaways from our seminar on community-led neighbourhood governance

Local Trust’s research manager, Lucy Terry, reflects on the key learnings shared by the panel at our latest research seminar at the University of Manchester. 

Last month, Local Trust hosted and chaired a seminar on putting communities in charge at the neighbourhood level.  

We were joined by three speakers: Catherine Durose, Professor of Public Policy and Co-director of the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice, and Place at the University of Liverpool; Liz Richardson, Professor of Public Administration at the University of Manchester; and Gavin Parker, Professor of Planning Studies at the University of Reading. 

The event formed part of our series of research seminars – the next will take place in London on 26 November, exploring the topic of effective community leadership. You can sign up for your free place now.  

Reflecting on our September event, these were three of my key takeaways: 

1.  A social justice lens could transform neighbourhood planning

In his presentation, Gavin Parker explained that neighbourhood planning has been predominantly taken up in affluent and rural areas. He noted that: 

• The process is currently too much of a burden for some places to fully participate, with little community development support involved.  

• The boundaries are too narrow, and do not always fit with issues that communities are concerned about.  

In response, Gavin argued that what we need is an approach to community-led planning that has bespoke arrangements for different neighbourhoods – where support for neighbourhood planning reflects a particular place’s needs and issues.  

He reflected that future research into community-led planning will explore the planning system through a critical, social justice lens, moving away from a focus on growth alone. It will study the power dynamics of participation within the planning process, and why areas chose not to implement neighbourhood plans.  

2.  Community Land Trusts could deliver community control

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) could be an important mechanism for community control at the place level. CLTs involve members of a trust or organisation using land to serve the interests of a community.  

As Catherine Durose and Liz Richardson explained, CLTs were originally conceived within the African-American civil rights movement of the 1960s. Yet there’s a battle for the ‘soul’ of these trusts. Not all CLTs in the UK today are rooted in community activism, and not all deliver community control. 

This reflects a familiar tension between financial sustainability and issues of justice. There has been an expansion of CLTs in the UK, but this has been accompanied by concerns that the level of community control has been compromised in the pursuit of organisational sustainability.  

Catherine and Liz noted the need for further rigorous research to understand what it could look like to develop community-led housing in a way that supports community control. Their typology of CLTs suggests that it’s not just governance forms that are important, but also, for example, the overall purpose of the housing provision and its connection to the wider community.  

They also highlighted the fact that there is no single route to community control.   

3. The work of Elinor Ostrom continues to have ongoing relevance

The governance of the ‘commons’ is a relevant idea. It refers to the control of a common resource, such as water or forests, by a community that establishes and enforces the rules of its management.  

Elinor Ostrom, the Nobel Prize-winning scholar, identified principles for the successful management of resources in the commons. As Liz and Catherine explained, ‘commoning’ doesn’t simply occur, but needs communities willing to create, maintain and protect such arrangements.  

They also observed that researchers need to delve into the ‘dirt’ of how commoning is practised, by looking at examples across different types of resources, communities and places. 

Sonia Bussu, a former Local Trust researcher and now associate professor at the University of Birmingham, has studied different examples of commoning in her forthcoming work on new forms of citizen-state partnerships, including an example of water management in Naples. The work will also incorporate community-led research in the Big Local programme.  

Join us at our next seminar  

Our next research seminar is taking place on 26 November at Toynbee Hall, London, exploring the topic of how to support effective community leadership.  

We’re welcoming speakers from UCL, the University of Sussex and the Open University; Professor Sarah Pearson from Sheffield Hallam will be chairing.  

Find out more and register for your free place. 

Read more on the topic of community-led neighbourhood governance 

• Gavin’s project can be found at: Just neighbourhoods? Under representation in UK community-led planning  

• Sonia can be contacted via her University of Birmingham profile for more on her forthcoming research.  
• The paper Catherine and Liz referenced is available to read at: Community Control in the Housing Commons: A Conceptual Typology. Hear from Catherine in the video below.