No acquisition capital behind the new Community Right to Buy
The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 gives communities first refusal on registered assets of community value. The fund that used to pay for such purchases, the Community Ownership Fund, closed in December 2024 after granting £135m to 409 projects with £15m unspent, and the government declined to replace it. Some partial cover exists. The £175m Community Wealth Fund reaches only the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods and does not focus on asset purchase. Community share raises rarely get near market value for a building. The Architectural Heritage Fund lends, but against heritage properties only, and Plunkett and Locality offer advice rather than capital. None of it provides ready money inside the statutory moratorium window.
The moratorium clock is fixed in the Act, and a group has to raise full market value before it runs out. Plunkett reports that the funding vacuum is already stopping groups from saving local businesses. Deprived areas raise money slowest, so they lose their assets first.
A permanent Community Asset Acquisition Fund. It would make grants and patient loans, and it would match community share raises. Underwriting would let a group commit within the moratorium period and settle once the raise completes. Capital of £50–100m a year could come from dormant assets, with Pride in Place allocations or a National Lottery partnership as alternatives. Community foundations could deliver it, with Plunkett and Locality supporting each purchase.
// Build together: Counterparty: National Lottery Community Fund or dormant-assets distributor; Power to Change-style endowment needs no legislation, community foundations deliver.
The right is live now and no replacement fund is coming, so groups are losing assets inside moratorium windows they cannot finance.
One gap, several dossiers: entries folded into this one (1)
The research pass surfaced this gap independently in more than one domain. Those entries are merged here so the map counts it once: the same standing acquisition fund inside the statutory moratorium window, surfaced by both the civic and parallel-institutions dossiers.
№ 103 · A statutory Community Right to Buy with no acquisition fund behind it (Parallel institutions)
The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 (Royal Assent 29 April 2026, s.67) gives community groups a right of first refusal on Assets of Community Value with up to a 12-month moratorium. But the Community Ownership Fund (£135m to 409 projects since 2021) was closed early in December 2024 with no successor, and Community Shares Booster match investment ran at only ~£1m in 2025. Communities now hold a statutory right and a deadline, with no standing capital source to exercise it.
Its fill: A standing revolving community-asset acquisition facility (£100m+, blending dormant assets, social investment and philanthropy) with development support timed to the moratorium window, deliverable through Access, Big Society Capital-type intermediaries or the Community Wealth Fund architecture.