About Bishops Castle

Bishop’s Castle is a picturesque market town in Shropshire, close to the Welsh border. It is a lively market town with a strong agricultural history. Bishops Castle is now more than ever a mixed community. Those who work on the land,builders, tradespeople, workers in tourism, retail, leisure and catering,professionals, retired people,artists, musicians, writers and craftspeople all live here. It is home to several annual festivals and events, such as the Beer Festival, the Walking Festival, and more. You can find the comprehensive website on Bishop’s Castle here.

Principles of Community Land Trusts

Community Land Trusts are democratic, locally controlled, and will be useful to their communities for a very, very long time. Land Trusts:

  • Own Land to be used for the good of the community

  • Do not aim to make a profit, all income is directed back into the Trust

  • Are controlled by the shareholders

  • Encourage as many local residents as possible to be shareholders

Bishops Castle & District Community Land Trust

was launched in 2007. It is constituted as a Industrial and Provident Society (FSA registered 30231R)

Our aims include:

  • To provide affordable housing to local people, by building new properties or renovating existing ones. Our policy is to own properties and let them out, rather than sell them. This way the properties are assets that remain in the community forever. We will also support self-build projects.

  • To provide premises for small (and micro) businesses.

  • To make land available for allotments, market gardens, orchards and woodlands.

  • To acquire and hold land for any other use of benefit to the people of Bishop’s Castle and District, e.g. community owned renewable energy projects or land for recreational use.

These aims reflect the wishes of Bishop’s Castle residents as expressed in the Bishop’s Castle Parish Plan of 2004, and the Housing Needs and Business survery conducted by the BCCLT Steering Group in 2006. The more residents that join the Land Trust, the more we can serve these aims.

Bishop’s Castle Town Allotments

Other Land Trusts

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Stonesfield Community Trust, Oxfordshire Of the thirty or so Community Land Trusts already established in the UK, Stonesfield is perhaps one of the nearest models for Bishop’s Castle. In the early 1980s steep rises in Oxfordshire land prices had a destructive effect on village communities. Stonesfield Community Trust was formed in 1983 to give people on local wages a better chance of living there. Today it owns 15 houses and flats, the local post office, and a building for a pre-school group. The assets are valued at £2.75 million and it generates an annual income of £30-40,000, which is invested back into projects for the benefits of local residents.

For information on other Community Land Trusts, you can go to our links page.

History of Land Trusts

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Although the term “Community Land Trust” is recent, the idea of a co-operative effort to provide long-term public benefit goes back a long way. The founder of the co-operative movement, Robert Owen (Newtown’s most famous son) set up a community fund to establish “villages of co-operation” in the C19th. Ebenezer Howard set up the most successful and famous “new town” in Britain – Letchworth Garden City. This was done through an Industrial and Provident Society, just like the BCCLT.

The Co-operative Fund is helping to fund some of the work of establishing the BCCLT.