Spooky. In my last post I was saying that there was still a deafening silence on my Community Right to Build Google-Alert, but hours after posting this plopped into my inbox. Planning Magazine reports that there have been four bids to the DCLG/HCA’s £17.5m Community Right to Build seed-fund, though it says the HCA can’t reveal from where and for how much.
Much scoffing and ‘told-you-so-ing’ on Twitter about slow take up of the CRtB, naturally – but as a Locality spokes-person points out ‘it’s still early days’. The use of the CRtB will by its very nature be driven by very specific conditions and opportunities, in contrast to the much more general Neighbourhood Plan process (296 under way, apparently).
We hope to be adding a fifth application to the total in the next month or so, for a project we’re involved with at Lucas Hickman Smith – and we’d like to be less cagey about it than the other four. Watch this space…
For some previous thoughts on the Community Right to Build start here.