The Community Ownership Fund is a UK government initiative to help communities fund the purchase of properties that benefit the community. Extract from the government website in relation to the Community Ownership Fund. Last updated 14th December 2021
“In order to fully examine, learn and implement the lessons of the first pilot bidding round of the Community Ownership Fund, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will be pushing back the start date for the second round to spring 2022. This will enable us to ensure that the Community Ownership Fund is able to effectively invest in communities across the United Kingdom and that communities have more time to submit successful applications to the fund.
We will be launching an updated prospectus, assessment guidance and application form in spring 2022. Alongside this we will also be offering additional support to interested groups to help as many projects as possible to benefit from the fund.
In the meantime, we understand that some community groups who were unsuccessful in round 1 will be seeking to reapply for funding due to urgent time constraints related to saving their community asset. We will therefore be reopening round 1 only for those applicants whose bids were eligible but were not funded in the first bidding round on 6 December 2021 and closing in February 2022. The assessment criteria and prospectus will remain the same as round 1, and we are therefore only looking for markedly improved bids to reapply, otherwise projects will not meet the requirements for funding.
We will be contacting all those who were eligible but unfunded in round one to discuss how we can offer support them going forward.“
Further details can be found at Community Ownership Fund