Community Ownership Fund (Closed)

The Community Ownership Fund (COF) is closed. The prospectus page on GOV.UK states that the fund is now closed and that there will be no further application windows on the COF programme; that page was last updated on 23 December 2024. Round 4 was the final round. Its first and only window opened on 25 March 2024 and closed on 10 April 2024. A second Round 4 window was trailed but never ran. If a funding directory, an adviser, or an older guide describes COF as open or invites you to register interest, that information is out of date — there is no application form to complete and no deadline to work towards.

While it ran, the fund made capital grants to community organisations buying or renovating local assets at risk: community pubs, sports grounds and clubs, village shops, cinemas and theatres, music venues, parks and green spaces, and community centres. Grants ran from £20,000 to £250,000 for most assets, with a higher ceiling of up to £1 million for larger sports and leisure facilities. The money was for capital costs — purchase price, refurbishment, fit-out — and never for revenue costs such as staffing, utilities, or maintenance after acquisition. Applicants had to raise 50% match funding from community shares, donations, loans, or other eligible sources.

Across its rounds from 2021 to 2024 the programme awarded £135 million to 409 projects across the UK: £93.4 million to 283 projects in England, £22 million to 57 projects in Scotland, £8.8 million to 30 projects in Wales, and £11.4 million to 39 projects in Northern Ireland. GOV.UK still publishes the list of successful bidders. It is worth reading if you are building a case for a similar project, because it shows which kinds of assets and organisations government was prepared to back, and at what scale.

Two things have been announced to succeed COF, and neither of them is open.

First, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026. Section 67 and Part 1 of Schedule 31 amend the Localism Act 2011 to create a Community Right to Buy in England, together with a new category of Sporting Assets of Community Value. The intention is to strengthen the existing Assets of Community Value regime, under which community groups presently have only a right to bid. These provisions are not yet in force. They await commencement regulations and statutory guidance, so nothing about the current Assets of Community Value process has changed on the ground.

Second, a £61 million Community Right to Buy Fund was announced on 16 June 2026 as part of the Pride in Place programme. There is no prospectus and no application page for it. Eligibility, grant sizes, any match-funding requirement, the nations covered, and the opening date have all yet to be published. Watch GOV.UK for the prospectus, and ask your local Council for Voluntary Service or a support body such as Locality or the Plunkett Foundation to alert you when it appears. Treat any organisation offering to prepare or submit an application to this fund for a fee as a warning sign: at present there is nothing to apply to.

The 2026 Act applies to England. Scotland has had its own statutory community right to buy since the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, administered by the Scottish Government; groups in Wales and Northern Ireland should check the position with their own administration, as it differs.

COF required the applicant to be a community organisation with an asset lock — a legal restriction meaning assets can only be used for community benefit and cannot be sold on for private profit. Suitable structures included Community Interest Companies (CICs), development trusts, co-operatives and community benefit societies registered with the FCA, Charitable Incorporated Organisations (CIOs), and other community-benefit bodies.

That requirement was not a quirk of one fund. Almost every grant funder, social lender, and local authority disposing of an asset at less than best consideration asks for the same thing, and the Community Right to Buy provisions in the 2026 Act build on the Assets of Community Value regime, which also turns on community-benefit bodies. So if you are working towards a community asset purchase, incorporating an asset-locked body and registering it with Companies House (for a CIC) or the FCA (for a co-operative or community benefit society) remains the right first step. Setting up a new entity specifically for the purchase is normal and takes anything from a few weeks to a few months.

COF also assessed two things that every funder in this field assesses. The first is whether the asset is genuinely at risk — a closure notice, a sale, a planning application for redevelopment for a non-community purpose, or documented deterioration. The second is whether there is real community support, evidenced through consultation, letters of support, signed surveys, or pledges to a community share offer. Neither test has gone away with the fund, so building that evidence now is not wasted effort whatever opens later.

COF ran a two-stage process: a short online eligibility assessment, followed by a full business case covering the asset, the community need, the organisation's capacity, financial forecasts, and evidence of community support. A good many groups were still assembling that material when the fund closed, and some are still holding it.

Very little of it is dead. A business case for a community asset purchase is largely the same document whoever is reading it: an independent valuation and condition survey, a realistic trading forecast showing the asset can be sustained after purchase, a governance structure with an asset lock, and evidence of community backing. The National Lottery Community Fund, charitable trusts and foundations, social lenders such as Charity Bank and Social Investment Scotland, and local authority regeneration budgets all ask for versions of the same thing — and so, in all likelihood, will any future Community Right to Buy Fund.

The weaknesses that sank COF applications are the same ones that sink applications elsewhere: thin evidence of community support, a financial model that does not demonstrate long-term viability, match funding that is aspirational rather than committed, and an asset that does not clearly meet the "at risk" threshold. If your bid was weak on any of those, the closure has at least bought you time to fix it. Specialist support for community ownership projects is available from the Plunkett Foundation (community pubs and shops), Locality, and Power to Change, as well as your local Council for Voluntary Service — check what each currently offers, as their programmes change.

Most successful COF projects raised their 50% match through a community share offer, and the technique long predates the fund and outlasts it. A community share offer invites local people to invest small sums — typically £50 to £1,000 — in exchange for withdrawable shares in the community organisation. Because community shares are withdrawable capital (not permanent equity), they are treated as member capital on the balance sheet and do not carry profit distribution rights beyond a limited return.

Community share offers are regulated under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 and must include a compliant share offer document approved by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA has a specific exemption for community benefit society share offers under £5 million, but the offer document must still meet prescribed standards covering the purpose of the offer, financial information, risk warnings, and the terms on which shares can be withdrawn. The Community Shares Unit, a joint initiative of Co-operatives UK and Locality, provides detailed guidance and a quality mark for compliant share offers.

A share offer does more than raise money — it demonstrates community ownership in the most literal sense, which is exactly what assessors at any funder are looking for. Groups that have completed one consistently present a stronger case than those relying on alternative match sources. The process takes three to six months from initial planning to completion of the offer, so it is worth starting well before you need the money rather than waiting for a fund to open.

If a community share offer is not practical — for example, where the community is too small or the timeline too tight — alternative match sources include loans from Charity Bank or Social Investment Scotland, grants from Power to Change or charitable trusts, and donations from major local donors. Expect any funder to scrutinise how credible and committed those sources are, and to want written confirmation rather than expressions of interest.