Community-Led Place Stewardship

We are pleased to share a new report on this subject, produced in partnership with the Community Land Trust Network of England and Wales and the European CLT Network, supported by Laudes Foundation. This is part of our work exploring new forms of governance across multiple sectors including energy and housing, alongside multiple stakeholders.

Current place management norms aren’t working. Millions of people live in new housing estates with a limited say on how their neighbourhood is managed. Unadopted roads and parks leave residents footing often expensive and unclear bills for maintenance, with little or no long-term planning for the impacts of climate change. The use of private management models to deal with place management has ballooned as local council finances have worsened.

As the UK focuses on expanding housebuilding, this report sets out an alternative approach, putting effective community stewardship at the heart of the long-term well-being of new large housing developments.

Referencing five trailblazing communities that shape, own, and steward large-scale housing developments in England, and supported by interviews with various stakeholders, we lay out a credible model for civic collaboration that can provide compounding benefits for current residents, future generations, and our environments. This promotes place stewardship approaches that provide long-term, genuinely democratic ways of making our neighbourhoods more resilient to future risks, promoting quality of life and wellbeing.