The Community Asset Fund is a pilot programme, supported by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. It will contribute to our Investment Plan under the People and Communities theme.
The fund aims to address financial barriers to community groups and voluntary organisations interested in taking on responsibility for buildings, land or public facilities. Revenue grants are available for individual community organisations as they prepare to submit a Community Asset Transfer request.
This includes funding for:
- community consultation
- feasibility studies
- commercial surveys
- business plans
- organisational capacity building
The fund is a short-term addition to our established Community Asset Transfer process. Learning from the pilot will contribute to the ongoing development of support packages to community groups as they transform public buildings into successful community assets with social, economic and environmental benefits for local people.
Community Asset Support Fund – Year 1 Overview
In early 2024, we piloted a support grant programme for organisations working towards submitting a formal Community Asset Transfer request.
This programme aimed to tackle some of the financial barriers to preparing a strong submission to the scheme by providing grants up to £5,000 per organisation. Costs considered by the fund included surveys, feasibility studies, business plans and community engagement exercises.
The Community Asset Support Fund is one of the many ways we support community groups as they make use of their rights under The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015.
We are pleased to confirm the following community facilities have received interest from community organisations and grants have been made to explore the feasibility for transferring these facilities to community ownership:
- Janet Hamilton Centre / Coatbridge Outdoor Sports Centre – a number of organisations received grant support from the fund to explore their ideas for this space. Formerly home to a mixed use community facility, running track, car park and green space, the fund received strong bids outlining exciting ideas to bring the site back into community use.
- Fallside Secondary School – the fund supported an ambitious proposal to bring this school back into community use after its planned closure in summer 2024.
- Jerviston Community Centre – based in Motherwell, a local community group were supported to further explore their ideas for this building. The plan aims to maintain the facility for a broad range of community use, meeting the needs of the local community.
- Shawhead Community Centre – based in Coatbridge, an organisation representing a community of interest received support to explore turning this community centre into a new community base.
- Overtown Pavilion and Sports Pitch – many football clubs have benefitted from the new Community Asset Transfer rights in our neighbouring local authorities. We received a similar bid under this fund for the sports grounds in Wishaw.
Organisations that have received support from this fund may progress to formal Community Asset Transfer requests.
Please contact us if you require further information.
