Community Right to Bid scheme

The Community Right to Bid scheme provides an opportunity to help communities take into ownership their local assets should they become available for sale and the community can raise the necessary money to make a bid. 

However, for communities to take full advantage of the right they need to start nomininating their assets which can be either a building or land.  All the community would need to show is that the asset currently furthers the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community. The definition of social wellbeing can take into account cultural, recreational and /or sporting interests. 

Listing an asset is not such an onerous task.  It simply requires 21 people on the electoral roll to make the nomination to their local authority setting out the case why the building or land is a community asset.  The Community Right to Bid places a statutory duty upon local authorities to maintain a list of assets of community value.  This means that a successfully listed asset of community value cannot be sold without the community group who nominated it being informed.  The group will then have a period of up to 6 months to raise money to make a bid.  Furthermore, the owner could sell immediately to the community if a price was agreed.  A community asset can be in either public or private ownership. 

If 21 local people come together to nominate an asset; it does not commit them as a group to buying the asset if it comes up for sale.  But what it will do is give them a chance to bid for it if it comes up for sale.  For groups who wish to pursue the Right to Bid, there is also expert help on hand to support them.

For some more detail on the scheme, please see the link and pdf file below.  Expert advice and support in the form of grants is also being made available to community groups who wish to exercise this right.

If you have further questions regarding the Community Right to Bid, or on how we could help raise awareness of the right amongst your members thenplease contact: '+'Albert.Joyce@communities.gsi.gov.uk' + ''; // -->