RE: glenda2 Mar 2021 19:53
I've read this though..Chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to announce a £150m pot ($208m) in the upcoming budget that will allow communities to take over not just their local pubs but also sports club and theatres that have been hit hard by the pandemic.
Sunak is set to announce new measures this Wednesday to protect the economy through what he will hope is the final few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. He will also announce investments aimed at kickstarting a recovery as restrictions begin to ease.
The Community Ownership Fund will give local people the chance to buy into endangered sports clubs, theatres, music venues and even post office buildings.
Sunak said such institutions “are the heart and soul of our local towns and villages – they’re the glue that keeps us together.
Under the fund, which will open in the summer, community groups will be able to bid for up to £250,000 matched-funding to help them to buy local assets to run as community-owned businesses. Bids are to open later in the year.
“Whilst local assets around the UK have been at risk of vanishing over recent decades, history has shown that community groups can run them successfully when given the chance, the hardest part has been raising the cash needed to buy them before it’s too late,” the UK Treasury said in a statement.
There will be no definitive list of what kinds of assets community groups can bid for though – it is up to them to set out what matters most, the government said.