Pat Conaty's presentation at Land & community: Creating a 21st Century Commons event Dec '13

1. The Commons and Co-operative Tools:
The Commonwealth Wheel
Pat Conaty
new economics foundation and
Co-operatives UK
5 December 2013

2. The Loss of the Commons
1. Commons land was widespread until the 14th
century in Great Britain and Ireland – open fields,
no stone walls or hedges and land stewarded based
on customs and practice
2. Commons and waste land today is only 8% of land
in the United Kingdom
3. 40,000 people (0.06% of the population) own
nearly half of all land in the UK

3. Co-operative Commonwealth
Building a Co-operative Economy Closer to Home
BASIC NEEDS:
Food
Energy
Shelter
Reclaiming
the Commons
Democratizing
& Localizing
Ownership
KEY FUNCTIONS
Mutualising
Finance
3

4. Community Land Trusts
1. Origin in the Co-operative movement but forgotten –
Thomas Spence, Robert Owen and Chartists
2. Revived in the USA (1970s) and UK (since 1980s)
3. UK phase 1: five years of research into legal
structures, financing mechanisms and setting up work
4. National Demonstration Project: (2006-2011) established 22
rural CLTs in England and similar number in Scotland earlier
5. 110 further UK CLTs in formation including urban ones in
East London, Bristol, Liverpool and Cardiff and 250 CLTs USA
6. CLTs are also developing in Canada and Belgium

5. CLT Pioneer - Scotland
Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust – Land for People
(i) Community buy-out of the island for £1.5 million: struggle
for decades with absentee landlords
(ii) CLT established in 1997 – has developed community
owned businesses: including shop, tourist facilities,
workspace, hydro power plants and wind farm (energy now
98% renewable)
(iii) Successful struggle led to Community Land Unit and Land
Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 giving communities a preemptive ‘right to buy’

6. Cost of scheme
Stages of the CLT Journey
Construction
Intro
Building
the model
Detailed
Planning
Time
Completed
Scheme
(Occupancy)

7. CLT Development Steps
The Commonwealth Wheel: SELF-OP
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Social (community and stakeholder engagement)
Environmental (site selection, planning, design)
Legal (company type, leases, tenure, etc)
Financial (pre-development, development, etc)
Operational (Directors, staff, agents, etc)
Physical (procurement, development partners, etc)

8. National CLT Fund
1. A £2 million facilitation fund for CLT projects in England and
Wales – supported by three national charitable foundations
2. Funds for those bodies that meet the legal definition of a CLT
3. Projects must be 50% housing at least
4. Focus of funding includes four stages from seed and grant
funds to pre-development and construction finance
5. Additional finance from Social Banks, Community Land and
Finance (CDFI) and Venturesome (Community Development
Venture Capital Fund)

9. Support from The National CLT
Fund for Six Steps
Feasibility day
one day of advice
to help you
identify the steps
to take
Technical
assistance grant
a small grant to
fund initial costs
Predevelopment
finance
funding your
project prior to
planning
permission
Development
finance
funding the costs of
construction
You can apply directly to any part of the fund

10. St Minver CLT - Cornwall
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Village of Rock on the river Camel estuary near Padstow with high price
holiday homes and average house price of £320,000
CLT has developed 20 homes in the village using Self-build methods and
expertise from Alan Fox
Land price including planning costs: £10,000 per home
Costs: £77,000 for 2-bed and £85,000 for 3-bed homes – 26% of open
market value
12 CLT sites and over 100 CLTs developed by Cornwall CLT umbrella
which is a CLT federation
Public Social Partnerships between Cornwall County Council, CLT
federation and Cornwall Rural Housing

11. Low Carbon Economy Project: West Midlands
1. Localise West Midlands and
Marches Energy Agency:
recruited and trained 24 mentors
2. 10 case studies prepared
3. 52 communities engaged
4. Site surveys and community plans
5. Packages of funding for
community groups to commission
service providers and installers
6. Range of energy technologies:
– Energy saving retrofits for
community buildings
– PV: simple and complex
– Micro-hydro
– Community-owned wind turbines
– Biomass boilers
– Anaerobic digesters

12. Commonwealth Wheel – Community Land Trust Tool for Project
development: Experimented with Community Energy Schemes

13. Bayston Hill, Shropshire - 30kW pv
Peer Learning and Knowledge Transfer
• Driven by 2 group members with technical and financial skills
• Loan at ¾% over base rate – 1.25% from local Diocese to unlock the project
• Earning 8% return from FIT scheme, so healthy return for Church
• Experience and learning shared with over 20 community groups and networks from
across the West Midlands, and much of it open sourced. Also disseminated within
Church of England networks. Obvious national potential.

14. Tutbury Hydro (75kW), Staffordshire
The need for Community Energy Partnerships
Learning the hard way - now on Plan C
• Plan A – insufficient flow due to flood prevention measures
• Plan B – scuppered by Environment Agency – try other side of the river
• Plan C – new landlord, new site, new planning authority, new grid connection
1. Numerous show stoppers – all needing sorting first before there is a viable plan
2. Driven entirely by volunteers with help from: Carbon Leapfrog; ShareEnergy, Renewable
Design Consultants, Derwent Hydro, H2OPE, Local Authority, Coops UK, Baker Brown
Associates, Key Fund, Sustainability West Midlands and many local individuals, universities
and community networks.

15. Lessons Learned
1. The Commonweath Wheel works across
the full range of technologies/situations
2. Demonstrated that the process can be
codifed for simpler PV through Bayston
Hill, and can be shared and disseminated
3. Greatly simplifies the process for
participants – both community groups,
service providers and local government
4. Community Energy Partnerships can
provides a consortia framework
5. The method is extendable to applications
such as local food growing
6. Honest Broker – for all the talents and a
transparent, empowerment tool, seeking
mutual stakeholders to utilise.

16. Local Food Decline in Britain
• 1939: 96% of food was grown regionally in European
countries
• 1900 to 2010: loss of 97% of fruit and vegetable
varieties
• 1.4 million allotments in 1940s compared to less
than 300,000 in 2010

17. Sources of Land Supply
• Local authorities: 12,710 hectares of vacant
land and 96,206 hectares of farm land
• Property developers and corporates
• Church of England: 10,000 acres plus
• Network Rail, British Waterways and Sustrans
• NHS, Universities and housing associations
• Rural: Forestry Commission, MoD and farmers

18. Local Land Initiatives – Good Practice
(i)
Meanwhile Use – NVA in Glasgow using modular growing equipment
and Bradford Urban Garden
(ii) Rolling leases – NHS Lothian and Eastside Roots in Bristol (3 years with
Network Rail)
(iii) Land purchase – precedents in areas of rural Scotland with a
Community Land Fund - Comrie Development Trust (90 acres: ex-MOD)
(iv) Partnership arrangements – Soil Association and Community Supported
Agriculture: Stroud CSA 200 members and 1-2 farmers
(v) Creative uses of land and model licenses – Incredible Edible Todmorden
and Incredible Edible Somerset
(vi) Farming Land Trusts – Soil Association and the Biodynamic Land Trust

19. Landowner concerns
(i) Risk of planning and development delays
(ii) Skepticism about the accountability and
capability of community gardening groups
(iii) Fears of project failure and risk of bad
publicity

20. Community Land Banking
Advisory Service
1. Acts as a brokerage for land access
2. Offers security to both landowners and tenants on terms
and length of leases
3. Reduces tenure costs and charges and cut delays in securing
land access
4. Offers good practice precedents to landowners
6. Service of the National Federation of City Farms and
Community Gardens
7. Vehicle for Local Land Partnerships and CSAs

21. Local Land Partnership Trusts
1. Could be developed as a service by a City Farm, a Local Food
Partnership or other local organisation (eg. NVA in Glasgo is
an arts body as is FABRIC in Bradford)
2. Income sources:
a) Service level agreement with local
authority, NHS, University, housing association, etc. for a
policy objective
b) fees from plot-holders on meanwhile or other leased sites
c) fees from local landowners for setting up schemes
d) fees to enable groups to set up self-managed schemes
e) Income from enabling ‘community agriculture’

22. Meanwhile Use - Example
Local Land Partnerships or CSA
1.Secures land at £250 per acre yearly
2.Lets to community growing group for £600 pa
3.Group sub-lets plots for £900pa
4.LLP retains £350pa to cover costs
5.Group retains £300 for maintenance
6.Landowner provides fencing for security and
water

23. Social Enterprise Income
1. Seed capital: from large landowner as part of the deal for
containers, top soil, security or other infrastructure
2. Fees for service: to secure policy outputs for public body or
housing association (allotments and other: educational,
healthy eating, training, environmental, therapeutic, etc)
3. In kind payments: site clearance, soil testing, compost, etc.
4. Allotment fees: likely to rise in the years ahead as public
subsidies are cutback
5. Capturing added value: community gardening can save
landlord costs and also raise a site value if well developed;
land agent expertise could secure income for this

24. CLT Networks and Case Studies
For further information on Community Land
Trusts visit these two websites and look at
case studies:
England: See
http://www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/nclt
n
USA: see http://www.cltnetwork.org/