McFilter

Land Reform and the NW Mutual Bank?

Alastair Parvin has written an excellent piece, A New Land Contract, arguing that land reform is a key issue for building a better Britain. I think he's right.

The proposals at the end are interesting reading too, although I'm not sure that local authorities are the best guardians for the land, given the way that central Government is forcing councils across the country to sell off their land holdings in order to make up the shortfall in funding.

Maybe we can build some new communal institutions or patterns instead?

Is a step along the road encouraging more Community Land Trusts? Homebaked CLT is the obvious urban example. Talking to them about whether we should look for something similar for DoES Liverpool is one of my background, long-term planning exploration, intentions.

Similarly is that a way for the artists to club together to increase the amount of studio space in the city? Joining forces to all pay into a co-operative that slowly buys up more and more space to rent out cheaply, with the surplus used to expand a communal land bank.

Maybe the new North West Mutual bank collaboration between Wirral, Preston and Liverpool councils could provide more favourable mortgage rates to such initiatives.

And if CLTs aren't quite the right legal vehicle, maybe the Mutual could help develop and then finance it...

ADDED NOTE: The other, related, item would be to help communities to buy any Assets of Community Value, particularly if coupled with the building of tools to encourage more Assets of Community Value to be registered before they're under threat.