Asset of community value or local heritage listing

Listing a building as an asset of community value gives the community a chance to bid when the owner decides to sell. Adding it to the local heritage list makes it a non-designated heritage asset, which is a material consideration when a planning application comes in. Neither stops development, they are decided by different processes, and a building can carry both. Choosing between them means deciding whether the threat is a sale or a redevelopment.

Communities often pursue the wrong one. A shop about to be demolished needs heritage weight. A shop about to be sold to a chain needs the moratorium.

What each listing achieves

An asset of community value sits on a list maintained by the local authority under Part 5 of the Localism Act 2011. The consequence is procedural: when the owner wants to make a relevant disposal, they must notify the council, and a moratorium period follows during which a community group can prepare a bid. The community gets time and a seat at the table. It gets no right to buy and no ability to match or beat another offer.

A local heritage list is a register of buildings and structures that the local planning authority considers to have heritage interest falling short of statutory designation. The consequence is in decision-taking: the building becomes a non-designated heritage asset, and national policy requires a balanced judgement having regard to the scale of any harm and the significance of the asset.

Neither creates a new consent regime. There is no equivalent of listed building consent for either, and the owner's ordinary property rights are untouched apart from the disposal procedure.

Nominating an asset of community value

Nominations come from eligible bodies rather than from individuals. A parish council can nominate, as can a neighbourhood forum, a charity, a community interest company, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, a co-operative, or an unincorporated body with a minimum number of local members and a local connection.

The test has two limbs, and the nomination has to address whichever applies:

1. Current use. The building's main current use furthers the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community, and it is realistic to think that use can continue.
2. Recent past use. A use in the recent past furthered social wellbeing or social interests, and it is realistic to think that within the next five years there could be a non-ancillary use that does so again.

The second limb is what makes a closed pub or a boarded-up village hall nominable. Realistic is the operative word, and a nomination that asserts a future community use without any indication of who would run it, or how, is the sort that fails.

Evidence that works: attendance or membership figures the group holds itself, records of the activities that took place there, minutes showing community organisations using the building, and a short statement of what a future use could be. Social interests expressly include cultural, recreational and sporting interests.

The council decides. An owner can ask for an internal review and then appeal to the First-tier Tribunal, and there is a compensation scheme for losses arising from listing.

The moratorium and right to bid

This is the part communities misunderstand most often.

When the owner gives notice of an intended relevant disposal, an interim moratorium runs for six weeks from that notification. During those six weeks a community interest group can submit a written expression of interest in bidding.

If an expression of interest is accepted, a full moratorium of six months from the owner's notification applies, during which the owner cannot complete a disposal to anyone other than a community interest group. After the moratorium ends, a protected period of eighteen months from the notification runs, during which no further moratorium can be triggered and the owner is free to sell to whoever they choose.

So the practical outcome is six months to raise the money. Not a right of first refusal, not a discount, and no obligation on the owner to accept a community bid even at full value. Groups that succeed have the funding route mapped before the notice arrives, which usually means a share offer, a community benefit society or a lender already engaged.

Various disposals are exempt, including transfers between family members and certain transfers of a going concern, so a listing does not catch every change of ownership.

Weight of a local heritage list in decisions

A non-designated heritage asset attracts a balanced judgement rather than the statutory presumptions that apply to listed buildings and conservation areas. In practice the weight depends almost entirely on the quality of the evidence about significance.

A local list entry that says "attractive Victorian frontage" gives an officer very little. An entry supported by a significance assessment setting out the building's architectural, historic, archaeological or artistic interest, its relationship to the settlement's development, and the features that carry that interest, gives the officer something to weigh. Historic England's advice on local heritage listing sets out how councils are expected to compile and justify lists, and the better ones use published selection criteria.

Objectors should read the entry before relying on it. Where the local list has not been reviewed for years, or was compiled without criteria, an applicant will argue that the designation carries little weight, and sometimes they will be right. Understanding how non-statutory designations still stop schemes is useful for both sides of that argument.

An applicant's Heritage Statement has to address non-designated assets as well as designated ones, and a proposal that ignores a local list entry usually invites a request for further information rather than a refusal.

Effect on demolition and change of use

Neither listing creates a demolition control, which surprises people.

Demolition of a building outside a conservation area can be permitted development under Part 11 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order, subject to prior approval of the method of demolition and site restoration. Local heritage listing does not remove that right, and neither does community value listing. In a conservation area, demolition needs planning permission for relevant demolition in any event.

For change of use, the picture varies by building type. Pubs are the common case, and permitted development rights for changing the use of a pub or demolishing one were removed in 2017, so a pub now needs planning permission whatever its listing status. That reduced the practical importance of community value listing for pubs considerably, though the disposal moratorium still bites.

Where the building can be converted under a prior approval route, community value listing can matter more, because some of those routes are unavailable for listed assets or draw additional considerations. Check the class relied on rather than assuming.

Duration and review of each

An entry on the list of assets of community value lasts five years from the date of listing, after which it lapses unless renominated. That five-year clock is a trap. Groups that campaigned hard in year one often forget to renominate in year five, and the moratorium disappears quietly.

Local heritage lists have no statutory duration. They are reviewed when the council chooses to review them, which in some authorities means every few years alongside a local plan and in others means not since the list was created. An entry stays until it is removed.

Two different processes with two different timetables, in the same way that a tree survey and a TPO application answer separate questions within the same council.

Pursuing both for the same building

There is no conflict, and the work barely overlaps.

The community value nomination is about use and social benefit, and the evidence is about people and activities. The local list nomination is about fabric and history, and the evidence is about the building. One goes to the council's assets or community team, the other to the conservation or planning policy team, and in many authorities neither knows what the other has received.

Sequence matters if a sale looks imminent. Community value listing is the only one of the two that affects a disposal, and it takes the council up to eight weeks to decide, so nominate before the for-sale board goes up rather than after. Local listing can follow at any time and is more useful when an application is pending.

Where a group is preparing for either, the planning report index sets out the documents a future application on the site would be likely to need, which is a useful way to understand what any developer will have to produce.

This is general guidance rather than legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.