Local Trust relaunches campaign for Community Wealth Fund
Melanie May | 18 July 2024 | News
A campaign calling for government to allocate money from the expanded dormant assets scheme to create a community wealth fund is being relaunched, post-election.
The campaign calls for funding for neighbourhoods that have missed out on their fair share of support and lack important social infrastructure. These neighbourhoods are assessed as having high levels of deprivation that have lost facilities and services including community centres, pubs and transport links. The proposal for the fund was first put forward in 2018.
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The campaign has called for the Community Wealth Fund to be governed by the following principles:
- Long-term patient funding (10-15 years)
- Investment directly into doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods
- Community-led decision making
- Appropriate support provided to build community, confidence and capacity.
Pre-election, the campaign had resulted in a public consultation, following which the government announced that community wealth funds would become a new beneficiary of the dormant assets scheme. The government was due to announce its intentions about the design of the fund when the General Election was called and parliament was dissolved.
In the lead up to the General Election Local Trust then published a manifesto calling on the next government to review and expand the Community Wealth Fund and return it to the vision outlined by the Community Wealth Fund Alliance, targeted to doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
The campaign is now being relaunched by Local Trust on behalf of the Community Wealth Alliance, which is a group of civil society, public and private sector organisations including NCVO, Small Charities Coalition, and Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales.
Event for MPs
New members of parliament are invited to join Local Trust and members of the CWFA advisory group on Monday, 22 July, from 1pm to 5pm at a drop-in at the Thames Pavilion in the Palace of Westminster, to learn more about the campaign and how a Community Wealth Fund would benefit the doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods in their constituencies.
People can also ask for more information or let Local Trust know they wish to attend by emailing ki**************@lo********.uk.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.