RURAL COMMUNITIES are being encouraged to use community and land trusts as a means of generating electricity, delivering broadband and boosting other local services.
A Manifesto for Rural Communities – Inspiring Community Innovationwas launched in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary, by Kate Braithwaite, director of the UK's Carnegie Trust's rural programme.
The manifesto suggests the non-profit “development trusts” and “community land trusts” model in the UK can be replicated here and was drawn up following consultation with 44 rural groups across Ireland and the UK.
The community and development trusts are non-profit, community-based organisations established to acquire fixed assets and hold them in perpetuity for local use and are a feature of community life in Britain.
One of these involves consumers taking shares in the harvest and sharing the benefits as well as the risk with the farmer.
The community-owned organisations seek to develop certain industries or deliver vital services. In the UK, the trusts run shops, develop vacant sites or manage housing developments.
The manifesto is based on the experiences of thousands of activists working in rural communities across the UK and Ireland, including Irish projects such as the Ecovillage in Cloughjordan and the work of Tipperary Institute in community planning. It says that Irish rural groups should look at the work of Cybermoor, a broadband community co-operative in England that has encouraged the creation of businesses locally and given its area the highest broadband penetration of any rural area in England.
The manifesto also notes there is an income-generating opportunity for rural communities in contributing towards national targets for recycling, renewable energy production and carbon capture.
Séamus Boland, chief executive of Irish Rural Link, said especially in the face of Nama and ghost estates, increased community ownership offered people the opportunity to control their own destiny.