Helping communities take ownership of just about everything.
Annemarie Naylor is Associate Director (Community Assets) at Locality, and Director of Common Futures – an initiative established in 2013 to explore innovation underpinned by technology in relation to the community assets agenda. In the past, she established the Asset Transfer Unit (ATU) on behalf of Locality and worked with a quarter of top tier local authorities in England to support the transfer of over 200 publicly owned assets to broad-ranging communities. Annemarie has also worked for the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) and East of England Regional Assembly (EERA) to support social inclusion policy development and related programme delivery – latterly, managing EEDA’s Building Communities Fund, which supported asset based development across the region to promote social enterprise.

An expert in community ownership Annemarie is joining us to stimulate our interest and ambition for community assets of all kinds. From car parks to castles, communities right across the country are taking over the built environment and transforming them to render them fit for the 21st Century through common purpose and resolve. Communities are taking over all manner of land and buildings. Annemarie comes to us with a challenge – are there really any limits to community ownership? She offers examples of communities looking to take over hospitals, the Humber Bridge and, even, the Port of Dover. In addition, communities are beginning to consider taking ownership of ‘intellectual (or, less tangible) property’ to generate an income as social enterprises, as well as developing digital assets. Her rallying cry is ‘together, anything is possible!’