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 2.3.

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 fundingcan bid for funding to acquire important assets and runassets and run them for the benefit of the local community.

The Fund will run until 2024/25.March 2025. We intend to run 3 regular bidding windows eachthroughout the year for applicants to submit a full application to the Fund.   

SinceThe its first round, the Community Ownership Fund launched an updated prospectus on 2712 May 2022.2023.

We Havinghave learnedmade lessonspositive fromchanges to the reviewFund offor thefuture first bidding round,windows. forChanges futureto roundsthe theredesign haveof beenthe someprogramme changesand to the eligibility requirements andare applicationinformed processby forapplicant thefeedback, fund.stakeholder engagement, and lessons learned from previous rounds. These changes are explained in the updated Community Ownership Fund prospectus.prospectus and we will publish the Round 3 webinars on 17 May 2023.

The secondCommunity biddingOwnership Fund EOI is open for applications, ahead of the launch of the next application window of the fund.

Round 23 openedWindow 1 will open on 31 OctoberMay 20222023 and closedwill close at 11:59am (midday) on 1412 DecemberJuly 20222023.

Development atsupport 11:59am.is Ifnow youavailable appliedto inapplicants thisvia window,the weMy aimCommunity towebsite. informThey youwill ofalso be providing informative webinars on the outcomefollowing oftopics yourwhich applicationyou incan springregister 2023.for now:

The

Our development support provider offers initial support and willadvice closeto onall 14interested Aprilapplicants 2023up atto 11:59am.the IfEOI youstage. appliedAfter inthe thisEOI window,stage, wecertain aimapplicants will be able to informaccess youin-depth ofsupport for the outcomedevelopment of yourtheir application inand summerbusiness 2023.case, this may also include access to small revenue grants to secure specialist support.

Published 15 July 2021
Last updated 1512 FebruaryMay 2023 + show all updates
  1. Added Community Ownership Fund prospectus, Round 3.

  2. Updated to reflect the opening of the third bidding window of Round 2.

  3. Change to eligible funding requirement.

  4. Added translation

  5. Added new version of prospectus covering changes to the eligibility requirements and application process.

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

  7. Added Welsh translation

  8. First published.