Political and Legislative History
| Author | Simon Adamyk |
| Pages | 11-17 |
POLITICAL HISTORY
2.1 In the early 2000s there was mounting concern that assets benefitting local communities were being lost to their community. This was because, if the landowner was proposing to sell the asset, by the time the local community had begun to respond and organise itself to try to put together a bid for the asset, the asset had been sold. This coincided with a period during which a large number of local pubs, village shops and local libraries were being sold off or closed because they were no longer profitable or viable.
2.2 Both Labour (then in power) and the Conservatives (then in opposition) looked into trying to involve the local community more in the ownership and running of local assets. They came at the issue from different angles.
2.3 On the Labour side, in September 2006 the then Labour Government announced the establishment of a review of existing powers and policies in relation to the transfer of public assets to community management and ownership. This became known as the ‘Quirk Review’ (named after its chairman). The review reported in May 2007, Making Assets Work – The Quirk Review of Community Management and Ownership of Public Assets, often referred to as the ‘Quirk Report’. The Quirk Report analysed the principles and potential benefits of community ownership and management of public sector assets, and looked at the potential transfer of public assets to community ownership and management. It only looked at the potential transfer of public assets, that is to say, buildings or land owned by a public sector body (such as a government department or agency
12 Assets of Community Value: Law and Practice
or a local authority), and did not look at creating any new regime in respect of the transfer of assets in private ownership. The Quirk Report also rejected a proposal for introducing a community right of first refusal in England.
– A Framework for Local Authority Asset Management in February 2008. The community ownership of assets did form part of those policies.
2.4 On the Conservative side, the Conservatives set out their localism agenda in 2009 (when they were still in opposition) in their Green Paper, Control Shift: Returning Power to Local Communities.
2.5 More specific proposals were set out in a Conservative party political broadcast on 19 November 2009.
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