We primarily exist to:
- Ensure suitable plots of land and buildings are classified as ‘community assets’. That means that when they come up for sale, they aren’t simply sold off to a private developer – instead, there’s a window of time in which the community can buy them.
- Give the community a voice, then help them bring to life what they really want and need.
That means doing real research, raising resources (monetary or otherwise), and helping people manage projects in a way that gives them a return on their investment (be that social or financial) – for the community, by the community, forever.
…but our remit is broad and inclusive. We’re interested in starting or supporting a wide range of things, big and small – from art projects, to socially-minded initiatives, through to community housing. If it’s something that will bring a mental, physical or social wellbeing benefit to Norwich, it’s something we’d support.
Index
3: Freedom of Information Request from Norfolk County Council- The Great Hospital Trust
4:Policy Back ground to Norwich Community Land Trust.
What we want to do
- Secure and create community assets within ‘Greater Norwich’ (defined as the area contained under the postcodes NR1, NR2, NR3, NR4, NR5, NR6, NR7, and NR8), collaborating with local authorities, associations, societies, charities, campaigns, projects and social groups.
- Explore modern notions of community and its contribution to physical, mental and social health with research, impact assessment and knowledge sharing (via partnerships with academic institutions).
How we want to do it
We’re a Community Benefit Society, registered as a Community Land Trust. So we’re committed to our social objectives, and our values: diversity, accessibility, ecology, transparency, tolerance.
We’re run and managed by our members. Anyone who lives in ‘Greater Norwich’, or works for a business with operations in the area, or who can demonstrate a tangible link to it (having lived or studied here in the past) can become a member.
We’re a-political. We’re not affiliated with any political party. We collaborate and work with everybody, as long as they are open, honest, and share our values.
We’re very interested in long-term Community-Based Participatory Research. This includes exploring how the listening and observation techniques of oral history can be used innovatively to understand the needs of Norwich’s modern communities: discovering where they have been, where they are now, and the direction they want to take in the future.
How you can help
Next In Person meet update
Saturday 9th March 10-12noon. Rosebery Road Methodist Church Hall. An informal chance to meet up, swap ideas, catch up and find out what the next steps are.
Next online meet up will be on 24th February 2024 10-11.30 am. For the Zoom link please email info@norwichnclt.org.uk
Get in touch! Simply email info@norwichclt.org.uk
We have an email newsletter list we can add you to, or you can become a member for just £1 (contact us for more info).
We are currently seeking to recruit a board of managers, but are also just looking for support and momentum. If you or someone you know could help, please say hello.
Whatever your level of interest, whatever your background, whatever your experience, whatever amount of time you can spare – we’d love to hear from you.
What we’ve been up to so far
1st January 2024. Angel Road Junior School buildings and site transferred to ownership of The Great Hospital Trust for 125 yrs.
Freedom of Information Request from Norfolk County Council- The Great Hospital Trust
Asset of Community Value Status Granted !!!!
On the last working day before the Christmas break we were told that our application to have Angel Road Junior School site had been successful. This a huge step forward in our work on this project and many thanks have to go to vereyone who has helped and supported us in our work.
The following day we managed to get a street letter to those who live on Rosebery Road. Apologies if you did not get one our maths may have gone awry in the printing department.
The owners now have 8 working weeks to appeal the decision, which we think takes us to about the 23rd February 2024.If they do so we will be told of it. If there is no appeal then the listing stands for 5 years, until December 2028. During that time if the site comes to the open market any community group will then have 6 months to put together a viable plan to buy the site.
Next Steps:
We would like to invite community groups who would be interested in using this site to get intouch. You need to have a viable business plan, have some element of educational activity in the project and a lot of patientce with us as we navigate the reed banks, shallows and possible sand banks of this work.
Email us : info@norwichclt.org.uk
Assets of Community Value
Angel Road School
In June 2021, Norwich’s Angel Road Junior School in NR3 was closed over safety fears (ceiling tiles fell from the roof of the site). Ever since, pupils have been taught in spare classrooms at nearby St Clements Hill Primary, or in mobile classrooms at the neighbouring infant school.
These events have stirred up much confusion and controversy among parents and local residents. The future of Angel Road School – the building, the grounds, what we do with them – is uncertain.
We believe the people who live and work in the area should have a say in what happens. If the Angel Road site can’t be a school, what should it be? What would local people find useful, pleasant, or meaningful? It’s important that the community has a voice — otherwise decisions might be made in closed meetings, or by private developers.
So, working together with the local community and collaborating with local organisations (including Norwich Unity Hub, the Green Party, and the Labour Party), we’re trying to get the site listed as an ‘Asset of Community Value’ (or ACV) for at least five years. That means, if and when the school comes up for sale, the local community would get first refusal — there’d be a protected ‘window of time’ for us to decide what happens, and how.
The first step in this process involved gathering the opinions and ideas of the community, and proving that people care about the future of the site. To do this, we distributed a simple paper / online survey to circa. 100 households in close proximity to the site in April 2023. We had a brilliant reaction, with over 52 returned forms. The expected response rate for things like this is <10%, so clearly there is a lot of support and passion for the project. And plenty of interesting ideas about what could be done with the site! For example:
Assuming the site cannot re-open as a school (most people agree this is the first priority):
1. 82.7% of respondents favour the idea of the site (or some of the site) being used for community gardening or growing plots, with 80.8% suggesting a more general public green space.
2. 65.4% of respondents liked the idea of the site (or some of the site) being used for adult education activities.
3. 61.5% liked the concept of a community cafe.
4. 44.2% were keen on the space being used for child-care facilities and after school clubs.
5. 71.2% favour having public sports facilities at the site.
6. Many other suggestions had wide-spread support, including the concepts of using the part of the site for event / function spaces (53.8%), a library (50%), a community cinema (49.1%), music practice spaces (46.2%), co-working spaces (46.2%), and a Post Office (38.5%).
Vitally, 82.7% of people surveyed agreed it was “very important” to turn Angel Road School into a space for the local community, and 80.8% stated that such a result would positively impact their mental, physical and social wellbeing (57.7% said it would positively impact them “a lot”). Testament to this is the fact that 74.5% said they’d use such a site once a week or more. These responses have given us a great foundation of evidence from which we can make our case to the council.
The next required step was to have a casual, ‘drop-in’ style ‘Public Consultation’, which sounds fancy, but just means we met the community in person at The Rosebery Pub on the afternoon of Saturday 8th July 2023. The sun shone, it was warm, and the pub staff very kindly lent us some space to set up our stall. A great big thank to the nearly 100 people who came to spend some time with us. The enthusiastic debate proved, firmly, that the site does (and could continue to) have community value. During the day, we asked people to write down their ideas for what they would like to happen to the school site, and we had a whopping 56 individual replies.
Since our public consultation, we’ve done some analysis of the responses. This included generating a Word Cloud (using worditout.com), identifying themes (using taguette.org) and then running some statistical analysis (using jasp-stats.org). You can find the detailed results at the Open Science Framework website: simply go to osf.io, and search ‘Angel Road School’. But here’s an executive summary:
We had a total of 56 responses.
1. Just over 32% were related to themes of green spaces, such as gardens, allotments, and growing areas.
2. Just over 7% were related to ideas of a community hub of some kind.
3. 5.3% were related to sports activities.
4. Another 5.3% were related to concepts of arts studios.
5. A further 5.3% were related to themes of community food production, baking, and recipe swaps.
We have also analysed responses from a ward-wide questionnaire (organised by the Green Party, who are very kindly sharing the data with us). This research had similar results to our more local efforts: 52% of the 86 respondents said they had attended (or their family had attended) Angel Road school, while 74% have used the site for other reasons, such as events, fetes, yoga, ‘Kettlecise’ classes, to play badminton and even to learn how to type (in 1967/68 – an education that resulted in employment as a secretary for the rest of the respondents life!). 66% of respondents agreed it was “very important” that Angel Road School remain a space used for the local community, with 77% claiming such a use would positively impact their physical, social and mental wellbeing (58% said it would impact these factors “a lot”). 71% said they’d use such a site once a week or more.
While we can’t directly compare / combine the results of our three different pieces of research (as we used different research / analysis methods for each), we can say that themes have emerged. If the site can’t continue to be a school, local people are keen to see the Angel Road School site used for:
1. Public green space, including gardens and growing plots.
2. Educational activities (for both adults and children).
3. Community-minded initiatives and businesses that support physical, mental and social wellbeing.
4. A small amount of sustainable housing.
It is also important to note the anecdotal support for other usage suggestions for the site, including:
– A much-needed SEND school.
– A home for businesses, charities, and socially-minded initiatives displaced by the Anglia Square development plans.
IMPORTANT UPDATE (13/09/23)
We’ve recently been informed of some key information about the Angel Road School site — namely, that it’s a Department for Education designated school site. This means that, if saved, the site should, legally, remain a school. Which is fantastic news — the majority of people we’ve spoken to would, before anything else, like the school site to be… a school!
As mentioned above, Labour have suggested that the site could become a SEND school, which would be wonderful (there is a huge need for SEND schools across Norfolk). For the site to be something else, it would need to be de-registered — a process that could take a couple of years, into 2025 (although considering the site has already sat empty for two years, this isn’t that far away).
We’ve also unearthed that one of the biggest challenges facing the site is its state of disrepair — some estimates predict it would cost upwards of £1m to get everything safe and in order. We working to fully understand the implications of this.
In light of these revelations, after a period of research and reflection, we decided to press on with our application for the site to become an Asset of Community Value. A successful result wouldn’t stand in the way of any positive use of the site (e.g. a SEND school); it would simply add a layer of protection for the site in the meantime, and serve as a statement of intent for the community.
Our application was submitted on 13/09/23. Thank you to everyone who contributed ideas to the research and the writing of the document itself!
Application for Listing Angel Road School as an Assett of Community Value.
The application was submitted at the end of August 2023. We had an acknowledgement of reciept dated the 2nd of October. We are still waiting for a decision. Norwich City Councils own website shows that no applications have been recieved since August 2023.
Using The Community Ownership Fund to buy the site.
Following advice from the National Community Land Trust Network we have explored the possiblty of buying the site using this money, which is available to community groups to purchase sites and or buildings that are in danger of being lost to community use. We put in an Initial Expression of Interest and got a positive repsonse.
We also identified the officer at County Hall who deals with this site and you can read their response dated 12th October here:ARSChool norfcc oct2023
A community garden for Angel Road ?
As you will remember from the work that we did in the summer the greatest desire was for some kind of Community managed Green Space.The most obvious place is the green spaces around the school. Whilst we continue to explore that possiblity we are supporting the creation of a small community gardening group. If you are interested in that( is it possible to garden without one space? etc) then please get in touch.
Updated 6th November 2023
Research
Clover Hill, Suffolk Square, and Hall Road
In Spring 2022, we completed some community research in Clover Hill, Suffolk Square, and Hall Road. This was achieved with a grant from the Norwich Good Economy Commission.
We were looking to understand what residents like about those areas of Norwich, but also what they think would make them better.
You can download our report, in full, below:
We’d love to know what you think. We’ve submitted our findings to Norwich City Council, and hope our work will lead to more research – or inspire some community projects.
What we’re want to do next
Working with our members, we want to identify other potential Assets of Community Value that are under threat.
This involves:
1.) Splitting ‘Greater Norwich’ into a series of ‘neighbourhoods’, conducting research that gives a voice to the needs of those neighbourhoods, and then identifying if NCLT can help.
2.) Identifying potential ‘community assets’ (e.g. closed or closing pubs, churches, etc) in each neighbourhood, which we could use to set something up that meets the needs we’ve discovered.
Who we are
Norwich Community Land Trust was incorporated in November 2021. We’re a Community Benefit Society (FCA No.8749).
At the moment we’ve got four trustees (Roland, Joe, Eleesha and Jim), no paid staff, and about 20 members.