ACV stands for – Asset of Community Value – a space or a building that is important to a community.

Having ACV status means the local community will be informed if the land or building owner has plans to sell the asset.

Click here to find out more about ACVs

BOSF wants to make it as easy as possible for communities to apply for ACV status for your parks and open spaces.

Why?

Communities should have a say in what happens to assets – parks, allotments, nature reserves etc – that are important to their communities.

Why now?

Given that Birmingham City Council is in dire financial straits and the Commissioners might be looking at what can be sold to raise money, BOSF wants to make sure that we show how important our parks and open spaces are to our communities and protect them in any way we can. The right to register ACVs was granted as part of the Localism Act of 2011. Up ‘til now it has mainly been used to protect pubs, shops and community halls from being sold off for housing.

The assets that have been registered in Birmingham are quite varied – but not many parks or open spaces have been registered yet.

Click on this link to see what has been registered so far

(Also of interest on this list are the applications that have been rejected.)

As part of the Save Birmingham campaign we want to encourage as many communities as possible to register your parks and open spaces as Assets of Community Value. Registering an ACV does NOT mean that you are saying that you are willing to take on ownership of the site – it is a “flag” planted in the ground that says your park or open space is important to your community. If there is a threat to sell off all or some of your site – only then would we need to work together to work out what happens next.

Who can apply for an ACV?

Any community group with a local connection to the site can apply – Friends groups are just the right kind of organisation. If you know of a park or open space that is important to your community that doesn’t have a friends group (yet) or another group in the local community that can apply you can still make an application. You need 21 local residents/users of the space to make an ACV application and BOSF can still help.

What next?

To make applying for ACV status as easy as possible here is a template version of the form with suggested answers to the questions. And if you have any questions, you can get help by emailing [email protected]

You can also register your park or open space on the Save Birmingham website – lots of BOSF member sites have already done that.

Please email us to let us know if you make an application – even if you don’t need help – so that we can keep track of which sites are “protected”!

Posted on 20th November 2023