What is ‘Community Asset Transfer’?

Community Empowerment Act (Scotland) 2015 and Land Reform (Scotland ) Act 2003

The Scottish Government first passed acts of this kind to benefit the people of the Highlands and Islands – enabling them to take control of the land they lived on and worked. These were the areas especially be-deviled by absentee landlords, managed at second-hand and impersonally by private and business-driven interests.

Most of Scotland’s population lives in cities, and it was a natural extension of that law to bring this right into the urban context.

Since January 2017 when Part 5 of the Community Empowerment
(Scotland) Act came into force, Community Asset Transfers have provided for the empowerment of local communities – giving them increased authority and direct responsibility for their own lives, their work and their surroundings. And in this case, we would emphasise increased responsibility for our own health and for the nature within our city.

 The summary guide to the process says:

Having their own land or buildings can help communities be stronger. They can develop local services and activities and make their area a better place to live. The government wants to help more communities do this… The relevant authority [in this case, the government itself and the NHS] must listen to what the community transfer body wants to do with the landor building. If their plan will help people more than other ways of using the land, they will be allowed to do it.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/asset-transfer-summary-guide

The government funding body, Making Places, has awarded AACT a grant to set up public meetings. You are invited to join us in constructing and in making ideas for the future of the site workable. It is your participation and enthusiasm, which will ensure the success of this ambitious bid to take control of our environment and health.

This Video shows how Community Asset Transfer was used by North Coast Connection.