TCPA Guidance on long-term stewardship
From patchwork to tapestry: Overcoming barriers to planning for long-term stewardship in existing communities (TCPA, January 2024)
Download the report here.
The contexts in which retrofitting stewardship occurs can be vastly different, from new housing developments with a patchwork of existing planning permissions and management companies to council-led estate regeneration projects.
In this report, we draw out common lessons from these experiences to help those seeking to achieve holistic, whole-place approaches to stewardship in different contexts.
The Heart of the Matter: Emerging Lessons in Long-Term Stewardship (TCPA, March 2022)
Download the report here.
This research report provides an overview of emerging lessons from new and existing places which are exploring long-term stewardship. Including:
- An overview of the wider context and debates around stewardship including current policy
- An overview of the challenges local authorities are facing in relation to stewardship of new communities and sharing lessons from this
- Case studies from places that are working on stewardship models
- Sharing learning from long-established stewardship organisations, including places with Schemes of Management, and those established through the New Towns programme.
Guide 9: Long-Term Stewardship. (TCPA, December 2017)
Guidance through the range of types of stewardship bodies and setting out principles for success in planning and paying for long-term stewardship and running a good stewardship body.
Built Today, Treasured Tomorrow: A practical guide to long-term stewardship, (TCPA, January 2014)
Designed to help those who plan and build new places to secure a good-long term future for community assets setting out imaginative approaches to funding and management to empower local communities to take control or have a say in the running of local assets
Links to other Stewardship resources:
- Delivering successful stewardship organisations for garden communities, Pinsent Masons, August 2024
- Community-led Place Stewardship – Lessons from and pathways towards transforming management of large housing-led sites in England and Europe, CLT Network, European CLT Network and Dark Matter Labs, January 2025.
Other online resources on long-term stewardship
- Homes England Toolkit: provides information about to plan, design and develop a new garden community.
- Building with Nature: sets out guidance on how to deliver and manage high-quality green infrastructure.
- The Community Land Trust Network: network of organisations that are run by ordinary people to develop and manage homes and assets important to that community.
- The Land Trust: a charity that owns and manages public open spaces such as country parks, natures reseves and woodlands for community benefit.
- Bournville Village Trust: an organisation created to maintain and improve Bournville, an example of a stewardship organisation.
- Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation: a self-funding charitable organisation investing for the long term benefit of communities in Letchworth Garden City
- Shared Assets: an organisation that supports the development of new models of managing land.
- Rethinking Parks: a joint programme by Nesta, The National Lottery Heritage Fund and The National Lottery Community Fund exploring innovative ways to manage and finance parks in the UK.
- Plunkett Foundation: a charity working to support community-owned businesses across the UK, providing them with free advice, training and funding.
- Local Trust: a charity demonstrating the value of long-term resident-led funding of local communities to make their area a better place to live. They also work to support the 150 big local partnerships operating across the UK.
Greenbelt’s Case Studies
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