Our journey to net zero: Understanding household and community participation in the UK’s transition to a greener future

Published: 2024

Our new report warns the government’s existing net zero transition policies are likely to make the poor poorer, and push struggling communities further into deprivation and exclusion.

This research – which was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and developed with the University of Leeds, University of York and Trinity College Dublin – f…

Only Reconnect

Published: 2023

A report of the ‘Reconnection Summit’ that took place in October 2022. The summit was organised by the Institute for Community Studies andTPXImpact, in partnership with Engage Britain and its ‘Grassroots Advisory Network (a group of community activists and leaders from across the UK who act as advisors on the work of Engage Britain and identify…

Community Assets

Published: 2022

The Welsh Parliament (Senedd Cymru) Local Government and Housing Committee undertook an inquiry into community assets, with a specific focus on barriers and opportunities for communities to acquire built assets for community use. The Committee explored how the statutory and policy framework encourages and supports the development of c…

People shaping places, places shaping people: Community asset ownership

Published: 2022

More than 6,300 assets are in community ownership in England today. This model plays an essential role in ensuring places are built on resilient entities and benefit those living locally. As well as improving service delivery and financial sustainability, community asset ownership has been found to reduce vacancy rates, enable ‘bottom-up’ r…

The Power of Community: Learning from Bristol’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic

Published: 2022

During 2021, Voscur worked with academics and students from the University of Bristol to investigate how the sector had adapted to ensure delivery of vital services during Covid-19.

With many in our sector unable to deliver vital services by established means, we wanted to find out how our colleagues from across the sector had continued to ful…

Thematic Paper: Assets & Community Businesses

Published: 2022

Community assets – buildings or land which are used for the social interest or wellbeing of the wider community – can be essential to a community business’ service delivery and financial sustainability, and can contribute to greater community empowerment and pride. Power to Change supported communit…

The ‘Locally Rooted’ Community Business: Meanings, practices, challenges and the role of community assets

Published: 2020

# Preview | Download ORC-2020-12-The ‘Locally Rooted’ Community Business.pdf4MB Author(s) Bethany Rex Katrina Foxton Citation Rex, B. and Foxton, K. (2020) The ‘Locally Rooted’ Community Business: Meanings, practices, challenges and the role of community assets. Research Report. UAL Social Design

Understanding a maturing community shares market

Published: 2020

This paper is the first of two reports by Co-operatives UK reviewing the community shares market. The community shares investment model has become a popular approach to raising finance and since 2012, £155 million has been raised by over 103,000 people to save and create more than 440 vital spaces and services. This report comprises of communi…

The Community Asset Transfer of Leisure Facilities in the UK: A Review and Research Agenda

Published: 2020

This paper reviews recent work on community asset transfers (CAT): a transfer of management of facilities from the public sector to the third sector, largely led by volunteers. The review focusses on leisure facilities due to their non-statutory nature, making them more vulnerable to public spending cuts. The experience of CATs is reviewed, inc…