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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks also to @mp4stratford.bsky.social for proposing the amendment in committee and @sianberry.bsky.social for supporting it

Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 1d

You can read the committee debate and see the vote here
www.theyworkforyou.com/pbc/2024-25/...

Schedule 27 - Assets of community value

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:15 pm 23 October 2025

www.theyworkforyou.com

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 1d

There's still plenty of time for MPs to persuade the government of this, and we have been in touch with many including @simonforstroud.bsky.social to try to explain the case to ministers and win them around.

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 1d

The risk here is that you tie one hand behind the back of communities trying to list assets of community value, because they cannot make the environmental case alongside the social and the economic. And councils have the power to refuse applications without sufficient weight.

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 1d

In Scotland the equivalent right is framed simply in terms of "sustainable development", and so applications have been able to explicitly consider "environmental" aspects such as litter, pollution, natural habitats.

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 1d

The devo bill adds economic interests in, but not environmental. Why? The minister's argument against adding environmental could equally be used against economic - it's incoherent and unexplained.

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 1d

... and Community Land Trusts which provide a statutory framework for democratic place-based community ownership with reference to social, economc and environmental wellbeing.

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 1d

The Localism Act 2011 defined "Assets of Community Value" purely in terms of social interests. This was stupid, and put it at odds with duties around sustainable development, which frame the planning system which conditions asset valuations...

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 1d

The minister's argument misses the point entirely.

This isn't about trying to hijack the Community Right to Buy as a tool for environmental protection.

This is about ensuring the CRTB uses the same three sustainability criteria as other systems like planning to determine community benefit.

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 1d

Disappointing that an amendment to add "environmental interests" alongside social and economic was defeated in committee, with @miattafahnbulleh.bsky.social speaking against. At the CLT Network we'll keep working with @guyshrubsole.bsky.social etc to try and win this for genuine community ownership.

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 2d

I'd agree with all of this, and think Labour is still v.slow to engage with work around things like Community Covenants, Community Land Trusts etc that can embed neighbourhood-level social and governance infrastructure, and joining dots between those and the big ticket govt items like housing/skills

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 3d

Brilliant. What a moment.

Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 3d

I agree with that slogan but also think it's a truism that every developer could say they agree with! We need to talk more about whether a speculative development model dominated by a handful of big companies wrestling with an increasingly byzantine local planning system is likely to produce it.

Reposted by Tom Chance

William Simpson @williamsimpson.bsky.social · 3d

As far as I can tell, this policy would deport my Swedish wife (who has a well-paying job and pays thousands in tax each year, not that that should decide these things) because she "took" from society by going on maternity leave when our kids were born.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 3d

Tory policy is to revoke permanent residence (ILR) for everybody who does not earn £38k - deporting most nurses who have ILR

This is put in the video as "who is unlikely to contribute more than they cost"

NB: video does not say EU settled status is exempt

No govt since Idi Amin has done this

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 3d

Wonks will rightly look for the correct long-term fixes. But they need to be packaged in a way that the electorate can buy, and have confidence in. As it stands it feels like voters are being told to swallow a medicine they don't like without the prospect of them feeling any better come the election

Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 3d

Plus, there is the wonky argument as to whether increasing supply -- without also constraining demand (mortgage credit/property taxation) -- will make any noticeable difference to the average household's monthly bills within electoral. I think the answer is "definitely not".

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 3d

Instead I worry the direction of travel plays into the populist argument that the current government is just in hock to elite and corporate interests, out of touch with and uninterested local communities. Which I think is wrong, and unfair, but is all too easy a case to make.

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 3d

This could be wrapped up in a "fixing the foundations" narrative in which this new model is the foundation for prosperity, meeting voters' concerns and showing a desire to "build better, baby, build better".

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 3d

It's frustrating because there are aspects of the Government's policy that point to a shift towards a different, better system. E.g. new towns led by public development corporations with infrastructure first and a better mix of homes and amenities. Backing for SMEs and community led development.

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 3d

... lack of community voice/agency, 'rabbit hutch' homes built to an uninspiring pattern book and mostly 3/4 bed houses, too little social/affordable housing... on the list goes. Genuine public concerns. Not obviously addressed by backing developers to 'build baby build'.

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 3d

Not only that, but framing your approach as "we'll take the side of developers over environmentalists and NIMBYs", when most of the public fall into those boxes, and there is little policy to force developers to overcome solvable problems that lead to local opposition - lack of infrastructure...

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 3d

In an era of populism and discontent, when just 3% of the public trust private developers, why pin your political future on those developers meeting a target they say is not possible, and that would make a marginal - at best - difference to the living costs of voters in 2030?

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 8d

Yes, which is a much easier (in some ways) fix today, while supply sorts it out in the longer term, but LHA mysteriously doesn't get brought up much in a national debate that is dominated by the development industry.

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 8d

Thanks for the clarification... but then if the same total number were built, but with that alternative split by tenure, and with context like low LHA rates, the distributional benefits will be towards the higher income end with less done to tackle poverty and TA etc, would that be right?

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Tom Chance @tomchance.bsky.social · 9d

What evidence are you drawing on to set those targets, and what evidence of the impact it would then have on rents, differentiating the many sub-markets across the capital in terms of geography, income, housing typology etc?