My first ever blog post!

Community Land Trusts are a way of taking land out of the open market and using it to benefit people rather than make profit. This is useful for preserving farmland, providing housing to meet local needs, providing allotments, etc. The land is an asset which can benefit, and create wealth, for the community – eg. through rental incomes, providing livelihoods, and creating a means of accessing credit. This wealth can be reinvested in local schools, community centres or regeneration programmes.

For the past two and a half years I have been learning about Community Land Trusts. It has brought me in touch with many other movements and forces for social change. It has opened my eyes to a whole new fascinating world of committed and determined people that say ‘I am going to change things, right here, right now’. These are people using their imagination and creativity to achieve things where time and again government and local agencies equipped with oodles of time and money have failed. They are implementing solutions while the rest of us continue worrying about the problem. The journey that started with Community Land Trusts I'm sure will branch off and lead me to encounter other types of heroic community action. Here, as I embark on the next phase of my journey, I will share my path and the ideas, stories, thoughts, and ideas I encounter. Anything that should give us all cause for optimism.