Policy paper

Community Ownership Fund: prospectus

The Community Ownership Fund bidding prospectus provides detailed guidance on the purpose of the fund, eligibility criteria, funding and support assessment criteria and the decision-making process. Please see below for update on round 2.

Documents

Details

The government is providing £150 million over 4 years to support community groups in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to take ownership of assets and amenities at risk of being lost.

Voluntary and community groups can bid for match funding to acquire important assets and run them for the benefit of the local community.

The Fund will run until 2024/25 and there will be at least 8 bidding rounds in total.  

The Community Ownership Fund launched the updated prospectus on 27 May 2022 with the first bidding window commencing 10 June 2022. We have made some changes to the eligibility requirements and application process for the fund having learnt lessons from the review of the first bidding round. These changes will be explained in the updated Community Ownership Fund prospectus. Further supporting documents and the assessment criteria guidance will be published soon after prospectus is launched.

In order to promote the fund and to explain to any prospective applicants what is required in order to submit a strong bid, officials at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will be hosting webinars on Wednesday 8 June and Thursday 16 June. If you are interested in attending one of these events, please complete the following form expressing your interest so that we can forward on an invite. Do not worry if you are unable to attend a webinar, we will also be making a recording of the event which can be sent on request using the same form.

Published 15 July 2021
Last updated 27 May 2022 + show all updates
  1. Added new version of prospectus covering changes to the eligibility requirements and application process.

  2. Details of new round 2 start date and reopening of round 1 added.

  3. Added Welsh translation

  4. First published.