The Localism Bill is sponsored by Eric Pickles MP and and Baroness Hanham from the Communities and Local Government department is aimed at devolving (transferring or delegating power to a lower level) greater powers to councils, neighbourhoods and by giving the local community more control over housing and planning decisions.
The Localism Bill has four main measures:
- New flexibilities and freedoms for the local government
- New powers and rights for communities and individuals
- Reform to ensure the decisions about housing are taken locally
- Reform to make the planning system more democratic and more effective
Here is a plain English Guide to the Localism Bill, but it may well change and these changes can be found at this RSS feed.
The new proposals are briefly highlighted below and more detail can be found either in the plain English version here or in the longer Parliamentary versions here and are subject to Parliamentary debate.
New flexibilities and freedoms for the local government:
- Local authorities should be free to do anything - provided they don't break other laws
- Abolition of the Standards Board
- Clarifying the rules of predetermination
- Directly elected mayors
- Community right to challenge
- Community right to buy (assets of community value)
- Local referendums
- Right to approve or veto excessive council tax rises
- Social housing tenure reform
- Social housing allocations reform
- Reform of homelessness legislation
- Reform of council housing finance
- National home swap scheme
- Reform of social housing regulation
Reform to make the planning system more democratic and more effective
- Abolition of regional strategies
- Neighbourhood planning
- Community right to build
- Requirement to consult communities before submitting very large planning applications
- Strengthening enforcement rules
- Reforming the community infrastructure levy and other finance considerations
- Reform the way local plans are made
- Duty to cooperate
- Nationally significant infrastructure projects
If you happen to a landowner or working for a land owner then you may be interested, with reference to the community's right to buy assets of community value, to know that both the NFU (National Farmer's Union) and the CLA (Country Land and Business Association) are working on the land owner's behalf. This article shows how the Localism Bill with its potential stance on the assets of community value may affect future property sales and that the NFU "believe could amount to state interference in an owner’s right to dispose of property as he wishes."
The article continues to state, "Briefly, this would require a local authority to keep a list of land and buildings which are considered of community benefit. If the owner of a property on that list wanted to sell it, he would have to notify the authority. There would then be a moratorium on the sale to give ‘community groups' the opportunity to raise the capital to enable them to bid for the property. As currently worded, there would be no compulsion on the owner to sell to such a community group."
The NFU are working "to restrict the definition of what constitutes an asset of community value". Other articles on the NFU website with reference to the Localism Bill can be found here.
The CLA are also working for landowners as this article shows and the "CLA president William Worsley said: “These proposals will not work in practice and will discourage landowners from providing land and buildings to be used by their local communities.”" The article goes on to state "Mr Worsley said: “As a result the owner will lose the chance to sell or transfer his property at a time of his or her own choosing, which will make it much harder to plan ahead or take advantage of unexpected opportunities. It is very bad news for rural businesses." More articles from the CLA website regarding the Localism Bill can be found here.
Just today, the 5th of August, a tweet by CommunitiesUK DCLG .@EricPickles says new public property map could save councils billions bit.ly/oHhuZX #transparency #opendata - the full article can be found here with a demonstration map of council's assets.
So what is a community asset? This article helps to define what a community asset may be and Section 3.7 of this article states, "When considering whether a nominated building or piece of land constitutes an asset of community value, a local authority could consider whether the nominated land or building ‘furthers the social, economic, or environmental wellbeing or interests of the local community’. As for the final definition, I fear only time will tell. I welcome your thoughts.
