Mark Walton 'Making Land Work' Dec '13
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
0 likes•331 views
This document discusses community management of land in the UK. It provides case studies of partnerships between landowners and community groups to manage woodlands, waterways, and other green spaces. The benefits of these collaborations include improved public access and engagement with the land, skills and expertise sharing between partners, and economic and social returns for the community through activities on the land. Key factors that contribute to successful partnerships include negotiated management agreements, realistic expectations from all sides, and relevant skills like negotiation, communication, and flexibility.
Recommended
More Related Content
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (7)
Similar to Mark Walton 'Making Land Work' Dec '13
Similar to Mark Walton 'Making Land Work' Dec '13 (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Mark Walton 'Making Land Work' Dec '13
- 1. Making Land Work: current practice in community management of land Mark Walton December 2013
- 2. Shared Assets We support community management of woodlands, waterways, green spaces and coastal areas. We help landowners and community enterprises work together to transform under managed land into productive community spaces.
- 4. Case studies in collaboration • Broadclyst Community Farm (National Trust) • Chiltern Rangers (Wycombe District Council) • East Reservoir Community Garden (Thames Water) • Neroche Woodlanders (Forestry Commission / The Crown Estate)
- 5. What are the benefits? • Landowner – Improved public engagement, access and use – Specialist skills and diverse activities – Reduced or neutral cost • Enterprise – Access to land and skills of a larger partner • Community – Economic and social benefits • Environment – Better, lower impact management – Profits return to the site
- 6. What makes it work? • Negotiated management agreement – Clear rights, responsibilities and expectations • Realistic expectations – Understanding of each others needs, constraints and ambitions • Skills and attributes – – – – Negotiation and project management Communication Business and technical skills Flexibility, perseverance and resilience • Clear internal policies – Not a commercial disposal or contract
- 7. Ostrom’s principles • • • • • • • Clearly defined boundaries Rules adapted to local conditions Those using the resource participate in decision-making Effective monitoring by accountable monitors Sanctions for those who violate community rules Cheap and easy to access conflict resolution Community self determination is recognised by higher-level authorities
- 9. Creativity and the Cut
Editor's Notes
- Thanks Julian for that great bit of overview and context setting.I’d like to take some time now to look at some of the current practice with regard to community management of land
- Firstly a little bit about Shared Assets Established to support collaborative approaches to the management of woodlands, waterways, green spaces and coastal areasWe support communities and landowners to work together to deliver shared benefitsManaging land in ways that deliver improved environments whilst delivering social and economic benefitsCreation of livelihoods – more than just volunteeringSupported with funding from Tudor Trust we were formed in response to the government moving the canals to charitable ownership and attempting to sell off the forests.We saw great public opposition to a change of ownership – even if that was going to be to a charity – at the same time as s recognition that public management might not be the best approachSo if neither the state nor the market can provide solutions we need new approaches
- With the notable exception of ScotlandWe currently have little public debate about land ownership and land reform Where there is debate e.g. land values and land value tax it tends to be focused on housing – e.g. Cry Freehold on R4 this week. Kind of surprising because in the UK36,000 people (0.6%) own over half the landLarge proportions of the rest of it are made up of a few large institutional landownersForestry Commission, Ministry of DefensePrivate owners pension funds, utility companies, the church,Large charities National Trust and the RSPBLAs own 6% of woodlands in England – but nearly all will be public accessHigh level of demand for this finite resource (Buy land, they don’t make it anymore – Mark Twain)Increasing interest from communities in food production, renewable energy, and the value of outdoor activities in promoting better physical and metal health BUT accessing land is problem – high price of purchase (and rising)At the same time landowners – particularly in the public sector are looking for new ways to manage land at less costCommunity land trusts are one area where there has been a lot of work done over recent years and will hear more about this model later. But also an increasing interest in the concept of the commons – going back deep into our history but also as applied to more modern public goods like data or intellectual property.Considering some things as common goods – irrespective of their ownership – is being seen as a way of managing goods where neither the market nor the state seems to have the answers, where we need new frameworksHistorically commons were managed to enable people to meet their basic needs e.g. for food and fuel but were increasingly enclosed by private interests and we have seen waves of both private and state or collective ownershipBut there is now a global network of people working on commons based approaches to current social issues, many drawing their inspiration from the work of Nobel prizewinning economist ElinorOstrom who looked in detail at what made for effective management of common pool resources. Closer to home Natural England and others have been working on the idea of new common rights to revive this tradition. But in the modern world our needs are also for education, training jobs, health, art and culture and housingCan we work with our natural resources to help meet these needs too.
- Earlier this year I looked at a number of case study examples of community management of land delivering multiple social benefits.This work was undertaken as part of the Clore Social Leadership programme and I’m delighted to be able to formally launch the report here. You’ll hear about Neroche Woodlanders from Gavin shortly:Broadclyst Community Farm is operating a 13 ha / 32 acre farm in Devon on a standard farm tenancy from the National TrustThe land was offered by the Trust to the local community and the community farm was established in response to that offerThey engage local people in food growing and educational activities and are improving the environmental quality of the farmThey are currently entirely voluntary but aim to grow the business to be able to employ at least one full time staff memberChiltern Rangers is a new CIC that has been spun out of the woodland service and is managing 14 local authority owned woodlands – 16 ha / 40 acresIt engages local people and volunteers to manage the woodland in way that is more intensive than the council or a contractor would be able to undertake on their own and which engages the public in a way that a private sector contractor would notAs well as employing the two ex council staff Chiltern Rangers deliver training opportunities for young people and are looking to develop apprenticeships, internships and an expanded work experience programmeEast Reservoir Community Garden is a London Wildlife Trust Project on a 1.5 ha / 3 acre piece of land by the side of reservoir in Hackney in LondonThey have developed a long term relationship with Thames Water and have secured funding to open the much larger reservoir site up to local people, improve biodiversity and access. They have secured £84k in Heritage Lottery Fund money to develop their proposals
- In each case the community organisation is bringing skills and activities to the site that the landowner would be unable to do alone – increasing access and use – but also improving the environmental quality of the site through better managementAccess to land enables the community enterprise to deliver its social mission – creating benefits to the local economy through providing jobs, training and susutainable resources such as food or woodland products. It also offers wellbeing, education and j=health benefits and manages the land as an asset to deliver those beneifts.
- In each of these cases there is a clear formal agreement about the rights, responsibilities of both the landowner and the community enterprise in the form of a lease or management agreement – this isn’t always the case with many groups being in much less formal arrangements or operating without permission.There is a real need for each party to have realistic expectations of the other – to understand the constraints that a landowner is operating under and for the landowner to understand the real ambitions and abilities of the groups they working with. In all cases there was some frustration on both sides – for instance because the landowner was expecting the community organisation to be more entrepreneurial or have skills that it didn’t have access toThere was also an issue that whilst one part of landowning organisation might be keen to try a new approach they found that other departments such as legal or procurement teams would try to treat the arrangement as a standard disposal or procurement. Clear internal policies such as some public bodies have developed to support e.g asset transfer would be helpful here.
- These groups are all doing great work – delivering social, economic and environmental benefits.And we are currently working a dozen groups who are looking to manage land, woodlands and waterwaysRanging from groups taking on significant sized parkland or public space to boaters looking to develop moorings on the canal and a group of squatters on a private London Square that was once a plant nurseryAll of them are using the land productively to deliver multiple benefitsBut to what extent are they commoning?They are mainly focusing on the top two of these principles which relate to managing – but with less focus on the aspects that relate to shared or devolved control and governanceThe relationship is usually a direct one with the landowner using traditional legal formsleasing, MOUs / service level agreementsThe owner retains the power – there no community rights here – perhaps some devolved responsibilities of ownershipUsually that’s to one party which itself may have limited connection with the community or other stakeholders
- That’s important because these spaces are our common wealth They have multiple users / stakeholdersEveryone has an interest deep connection and passionThese are sometimes in conflictReal tensions between improving and regenerating sites and conserving or preserving them, between using them to deliver social benefits or protecting them from greater human use. Also everyone has a sense of ownershipThe very fact of community management of a piece of land may change it from being a neglected and unloved site to being one which everyone suddenly has an interest in.We need not only to be thinking about community management of spaces but about their governance – who is involved in making decisions and policing them?That’s true whoever may own or manage them.
- Pleased to see that Julian highlighted the role of creativity in developing commonsWe are working with Kingston University Landscape Interface Studio to look at the role of creative organisation in supporting communities to both engage in difficult and unloved spaces and reimagine a future for them, and also to think differently about how to share contested spaces – the focus of this work is the London canals where space is contrained, ownership is complex and there are lots of different stakeholders. We are developing a methodology which brings people and places together in ways that draw on a place’s heritage and history and people’s lived experiences of it to create new experiences and new ideas of how a place can be managed.
- Clear that there is great potential for shared approaches to management of land to deliver social economic and environmental benefits And in times of reduced public spending increasing need for new ways of managing land, especially publically owned land. But we need to make the relationships and processes easier for both parties and to move from just thinking about management to a new way of thinking about governance of our woodlands, waterways, green spaces and coastal areas. Otherwise the future will be just like now – but a bit despoiled.