Communities get right to buy on pubs
Communities will get the right to buy their pub and other community assets under new plans to shift power back to local communities.
Groups of residents will get the chance to step in if valued local services — often regarded as the lifeblood of villages and suburbs — are put on the market under the Localism Bill, announced today.
The Bill, laid before Parliament today, is seen as the centrepiece of the Government's Big Society idea.
Local authorities will also be allowed to grant discretionary business rate discounts to help regenerate the local economy.
"Local facilities have been closing down all over the country, leaving towns and villages without vital services," said Communities Minister, Andrew Stunell.
"Small community groups that are willing to take over local assets often find that they lack the time and resources to get a plan together and compete with the might and muscle of big business and developers.
"The powerful new rights in the Bill will put real power in the hands of real people, empowering local communities and putting them at the heart of local decision making."
The Localism Bill has six key strands:
• Devolving significant new powers to councils.
• Establishing powerful new rights for local people and communities— greater powers for local people to hold their local authorities to account.
• Radically reforming planning — neighbourhood plans will become the new building blocks of the planning system where communities have the power to grant planning permission if a local majority are in favour
• Making housing fairer and more democratic
• Creating powerful incentives for economic growth — The Bill will give local government a stronger financial stake in the local economy by allowing local authorities to grant discretionary business rate discounts
"The Localism Bill will herald a ground-breaking shift in power to councils and communities overturning decades of central government control and starting a new era of people power," said Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles.
"Central government has kept local government on a tight leash, strangling the life out of councils in the belief that bureaucrats know best.
"By getting out of the way and letting councils and communities run their own affairs we can restore civic pride, democratic accountability and economic growth — and build a stronger, fairer Britain. It's the end of the era of big government: laying the foundations for the Big Society."
