Hello Everyone
We often get asked “what is a land trust” ” why are you doing this” and “why in Angel Road, Norwich” plus many more questions.
To answer those in turn:
There is no one type of organisation that is defined as a land trust. A charity cannot also be a Land Trust because a Charity has to adhere to its charitable aims. That means that if they need to sell assets they have to sell them. That is the law and there is no way round it.
So what makes a Land Trust special. Land Trusts can take the form of being a Community Benefit Society, and a Community Interest Company, a Coop. The special thing about all of these is that they can include what is called an Asset Lock where by property , money and anything else owned by the group cannot be sold off. In the event of closing down than all things have to go to another group with such an asset lock.
There are about 450 Land Trusts in UK some of them of them are very small and focused on one building with cultural aims . Here is one from Bristol The Cube Bristol Watch the video and learn more about this remarkable place , including a speech by Don Letts.
At the other end are Land Trusts that are new cities. Forest City
We are doing this because we are inspired by the work of Hugh Barton and others in The Routledge Hand Book for Health and Well-Being.
Unfortunately this costs £55 paperback and we have asked the Library Service to buy a copy so watch this space. Other inspirations include
In the meantime we are trying to support, help and create something that is centred around the derelict Angel Road Junior Site.
These are some of the ideas that people have talked to us about.We have no doubt that there are many more.
The NCLT Team