Power in Place

Shared Assets, a community interest company with the aim of developing and promoting new models of common good land use, alongside racial land justice organisation Land In Our Names (LION) and consultancy Cohere (and Future Narratives Lab), have engaged with citizens and civil society from all over England, particularly those from the communities that are most marginalised and excluded from our current land system, to explore the impacts of Covid on their relationships to land and to bring to life a new, more inclusive narrative of how land can help achieve a just recovery and renewal. 

The report produced from this research explores why, despite the longstanding recognition that the way land is organised and allocated in the UK is a key factor in many of the most entrenched social challenges we face, land reform is rarely met with enthusiasm by either activists or politicians. It outlines what might be said to constitute a national narrative of land, one underpinned by cultural assumptions and frameworks that encourage intuitive support for the existing paradigm and pre-emptive dismissal of alternatives. 

The next step is to train advocates through online media training sessions. Advocates will be given the skills they need to use this report to raise awareness of how land can be a resource for community-led regeneration; to engage public, private and charitable landowners to consider how their land can be used to support a just recovery; and to advocate for a more socially, economically and environmentally just land system.

Read the latest blog and watch the short film here.