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💡 About the infrastructure analysis
This page provides an analysis of the landscape of infrastructure supporting community asset development. We apply different lenses to the infrastructure landscape to build a picture of what is available, where and to whom.
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Infrastructure for young people
Infrastructure for marginalised communities
Regional variations in infrastructure
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Infrastructure for community asset development is the ecosystem of support, networks, knowledge and financing that enables communities to create, acquire, control and sustain their own assets. Infrastructure includes everything from peer networks and pioneering projects to capacity builders and campaigns.
A strong infrastructure landscape ensures that communities are able to access the capabilities, capital, and connections required to develop assets successfully.
➡️ Explore the full infrastructure map here
The ecosystem of infrastructure supporting community asset development in England is rich and varied. It’s made up of a wide variety of organisations and entities playing different functional roles. We’ve summarised these into eleven typologies described below.
Whilst no typology can perfectly model the field, the categories illustrate the breadth and diversity of the infrastructure landscape.
Community asset development is most effective when it is an intergenerational practice. The involvement of young people in the development and stewardship of assets is essential if assets are to be representative of their communities and sustainable across generations. Our mapping and research, however, revealed very little infrastructure directly involving or supporting young people’s involvement in this space.
“I want to create a generation of built-environment professionals…that means equipping [young] people with the skills necessary…so that in 20 years’ time they can be the people that we call on”
The examples we did come across were positive. Co-operatives UK has made youth engagement a strategic priority. It hosts a Youth Advisory Group, runs an annual National Youth Summit and resources a dedicated Youth Engagement Coordinator role. The Stour Trust offers mentoring to young people in the communities they work with, as well as involving them in asset development activities from visioning community spaces to attending meetings with council officers and politicians. Footwork ran a dedicated programme “My Place” in Finsbury Park, London, to empower young people as advocates in the development of their community. Blagrave’s Listening Fund supported organisations to strengthen how they listen to children and young people across governance and decision making. These initiatives demonstrate the range of ways infrastructure organisations can account for the involvement of young people in asset development.
We also heard examples of youth involvement from asset developers themselves. Youth led initiatives Sister Midnight and The Beeches were involved in our focus group. Hasting Commons has developed a Youth Commons to provide opportunities for young people locally, as well as pathways into more meaningful participation in the parent entity. Adrenaline Alley offered a range of ways for young people to get involved in the organisation to develop a sense of inclusion and ownership, including volunteering, training, apprenticeships, employed roles and advisory groups. Similarly, 16-25 Independent People’s development of Kingsley Hall involved a Youth Board, apprenticeships and roles in consultation for young people. Across our engagements, we found a genuine desire for youth leadership and involvement.
A number of challenges in involving young people in community asset development were articulated to us. Young people can be less aware of asset development and therefore less likely to participate in it as a practice. Expectations and norms around skills, experience, technical knowledge and participation through formal roles and governance structures can all act to exclude young people from the space. Resourcing and sustaining work to involve young people was also a key challenge for already stretched asset developers.
“The incredibly hard thing about [running a youth provision] is sustaining enough resource to run, to meet the demand for what we have been doing, which is four days a week plus trips and holiday activities.”
Despite the challenges, there are a number of opportunities to encourage the involvement of young people in community asset development. Engagement and awareness raising can support more young people to imagine themselves in space. Engagement is particularly effective when focussed on what asset development can achieve and examples of existing youth involvement.
“I didn’t get into it because I love governance… I got into it because there’s a way that you can own a music venue.”
Asset developers are already keen to work with young people. Resourcing them to create routes for youth participation gives young people more flexible ways to be involved and for some to move towards leadership positions. Routes might range from simple activities and access to physical spaces to paid roles and governance positions. Infrastructure organisations should also be encouraged to increase youth representation in their work through strategy and the involvement of young people in governance and the delivery of their work.
As a tool towards self-determination and social justice, those furthest away from power and privilege must have the opportunity to participate in community asset development. Marginalised communities, such as those that are working class and racialised, are often the most impacted by lack of access to local and public assets. They are also all too often excluded from accessing mainstream support for asset development.
Despite this, marginalised communities are pioneers in the development of community assets. From the seeds of the NHS being planted in a working class community in South Wales to the Windrush Generation influencing the development of community-led housing, a combination of necessity, creativity and long standing cultural traditions mean that marginalised communities are often at the forefront of asset development.
Our mapping found only a handful of equity-focused organisations. Some more mainstream infrastructure bodies are also making efforts to direct resources to underserved communities. Whilst the current scale of these efforts does not meet the need of those facing disadvantage and exclusion across the country, this work supporting marginalised communities highlights principles of practice that may be drawn on in further development of a more equitable field.
“And that’s why I advocate for a reparative approach…you don’t just do the thing of having a funding programme for three years…and that’s it. You really have to look at this historically.”
For marginalised communities across the country to be able to realise their potential, we were told that there must be investment in infrastructure to support those who are structurally excluded to participate in community asset development. Investment must be targeted, sensitive to culture and recognise the historic under-resourcing that these communities have experienced.
Support for community asset development is uneven across England, with infrastructure bodies, funders and support disproportionately clustered in London and the South East. Our research revealed 60% of infrastructure organisations mapped were based in London and the South East. This aligns to patterns found by others working in the field and reflects wider London-centric patterns across civil society.
Proximity to government, finance and professional support creates advantages. Clusters of activity help sustain peer networks that allow knowledge and information to flow. In contrast, communities in the North, rural communities and coastal towns can face limited access to local technical expertise and weaker access to support.
There is some response amongst infrastructure organisations. Plunkett Foundation has targeted “cold spots” with new advisory capacity, Power to Change has invested in northern and coastal catalyst intermediaries and both Key Fund and Black South West Network are strong examples of regional brokers of support and investment.