samuel-saunders.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

"Community-led development has been bubbling up for decades. I'm firmly convinced it's the answer to the UK's housing crisis. It's huge for Frome. But this is a moment of consequence for the whole country." youtu.be/Go3DdslosdY

submitted 27 days ago • 0 comments

Today the Chancellor is talking about growth. We've joined forces with leaders locally and nationally to make a clear call to back community ownership and drive growth people can see and feel in their local area. Read our letter 🖊️ https://buff.ly/40O3GdP

submitted 39 days ago • 1 comment

New data from @cmmonwealth.bsky.social shows more support for energy projects if they are community-owned. The Local Power Plan should drive a community-owned clean energy revolution, creating new jobs, income, and lower energy costs for local people. www.common-wealth.org/publications...

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments

Now Mayday can buy the site the exciting stuff can happen...test casing a new way of doing development at scale...community-led and first.

submitted 44 days ago • 1 comment

1. There are many things I’m glad to leave behind on X, but most of them come down to this: loyalism. Regardless of ideology, those who tend to be most abusive, unpleasant and vicious are staunch loyalists of particular figures, factions or policies. 🧵

submitted 46 days ago • 23 comments

This is probably the most important domestic political story at the moment. Gilt yields being this high is going to kill the already shaky public finances. It risks making an already difficult spending review impossible.

submitted 61 days ago • 15 comments

#Council's in the last decade were able to, and were encouraged, to borrow unlimited money from the #Treasury through the Public Works Loans Board to make investments. Imagine if they were allowed to borrow that money to build new social housing...

submitted 62 days ago • 0 comments

1/ Councils through Section 106 can make developers build affordable homes on a development which are then sold to Housing Associations (HAs) for social rent. Such deals have been the single largest method of affordable housing delivery in England since 2015.

submitted 62 days ago • 1 comment

Bring it on. Pollute your platforms to unusability. Kill Instagram and Facebook. They don't make us happy, hari kari and be done with it all.

submitted 64 days ago • 0 comments

These letter-writers show how our imaginations are still in chains when it comes to community ownership. A Scottish-style Community Right to Buy is about buying up private land & buildings, and making them community assets. Not transferring public assets. www.theguardian.com/society/2024...

submitted 72 days ago • 2 comments

Glorious early colour footage of English farming before mechanisation; you get a sense of how many people still worked in the fields during harvest time less than a century ago. 'English Harvest', 1938 www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcyz...

submitted 75 days ago • 12 comments

It will be interesting to see if Com Right To Buy will extend to land, as the white paper references smaller scale acquisitions (like buildings) only, AFAIK.

submitted 78 days ago • 0 comments

CAMPAIGN WIN! Since our launch, we’ve campaigned for a Community Right to Buy. Today, the Government has committed to implementing this policy. 🥳 Well done to everyone involved in the campaign. This is the beginning of a community power moment! www.right-here.org/devolution-w...

submitted 82 days ago • 1 comment

An excellent argument for why communities should seek to enhance rather than reduce their power within the planning system. "by opening out the planning process to enable more and deeper community involvement, it is possible to build consensus rather than create opposition"

submitted 87 days ago • 0 comments

Local Government Audit is in Crisis - Just 1% of local bodies published audited accounts on time for the 2022/23 financial year. - The backlog prompted the NAO last month to refuse to sign off the Government’s spending for the first time in history 🧵 1/6 open.substack.com/pub/samuelsa...

submitted 88 days ago • 1 comment

2019: a report led by @georgemonbiot.bsky.social,commissioned by the Labour party, argued for changes in the way land is used and controlled in the UK. With the upcoming devolution white paper and reform of NPPF, I'll highlight some of the recommendations, more important now than ever. 🧵

submitted 89 days ago • 1 comment

Great stuff from Andy Haldane in the @financialtimes.com. Whether at a neighbourhood level or the nation state, we need to rediscover the importance of #socialcapital www.ft.com/content/97c1...

submitted 90 days ago • 0 comments

It’s not NIMBYs preventing new development – it’s a system that creates conflict by design. Our new report argues that meaningful community engagement can reduce opposition, speed up development & create thriving, liveable places. 🔗

submitted 90 days ago • 0 comments

Does HS2 have a future? And why does that question hinge on an unseen government document and a sugar mill in Nottinghamshire?

submitted 92 days ago • 27 comments

🚗What's happening to Europe's car industry is one of the biggest stories in the world right now, & prob the biggest story of next year too. A slow motion implosion driven by multiple factors (esp Chinese competition). Watch my primer on what's going on👇 youtu.be/oW_SXIVQT5I?...

submitted 93 days ago • 22 comments

How much? Exactly how much farmland has been lost in #Somerset. @SomersetCouncil has no idea so we thought we'd take a look.... somerset.substack.com/p/how-much

submitted 93 days ago • 2 comments

Once again Section 123 is used by #Somerset Council to justify selling land to developers rather than the community in #Frome. If the council has no choice, due to the risk of legal challenge, the law should change to favour community benefit over profit. www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerse...

submitted 94 days ago • 0 comments

In #Frome, #Somerset, a not-for-profit is close to becoming the first #community-led development at masterplan level. The mixed-use development of the 12 acre #brownfield site could become a new model for communities across the country. shows.acast.com/66a2308999c0...

submitted 94 days ago • 1 comment

The forthcoming English #devolution white paper will include a "strong new right to buy for valued community assets, which will help local people to acquire valued community spaces when they come up for sale, keeping them in the hands of the local community".

submitted 94 days ago • 0 comments

#Somerset Council leader Bill Revans is writing to the local government minister to "explore the case" for increasing council tax past the referendum limit. Somerset asked the previous government for an "unprecedented" 10% rise in council tax for 2024-25 in January but this request was refused. 1/2

submitted 94 days ago • 1 comment