The 5 pillars of Community Wealth Building

The 5 pillars were created by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) after extensive research and insight from pilots like the Preston model, with an aim to collaborate to understand challenges, develop strategies and policies that deliver practical actions which impact the lives of communities.

1. Shared ownership of the local economy

Shared ownership or plural ownership enables communities to generate income and the ability to retain the wealth in that area.

Development of community led SME’s (small to medium sized enterprises) and social enterprises can have a massive impact on the wealth retention of a community.

Existing businesses with a history of longevity in local communities should be emulated and replicated. The profits can be used to benefit the community through fair wages, reduced cost to consumers and reinvestment of profits in the community.

To encourage shared ownership of the economy:

• encourage the use and development of social enterprises and Community Interest Companies (CIC)

• enable workers to create more employee owned companies

• move towards public ownership where the wealth flows around the community, which helps stop wealth extraction

Whale Arts

An example of a project who are trying to address the balance between where land and property are owned by local people/ communities/ groups as opposed to only local authorities, and private businesses in the area is Whale Arts.

Whale Art, based in Wester Hailes, is currently working with anchor networks like the local council to move towards owning the land it sits on, so that the organisation and local community can have more scope and input into how the space and building are used for the betterment of the community.