Long-term stewardship

Creating places which enable people to live healthy and fulfilling lives means providing the spaces, places and infrastructure that people need to live well and which enable the natural world to thrive. It also means empowering people to have a say on how their homes and neighbourhoods are created and managed, providing opportunities for active citizenship. This powerful combination is captured in the concept of long-term stewardship, which is a holistic approach to ensuring places can be looked after in perpetuity. This approach is at the heart of the Garden City model and relates to a range of planning and delivery issues – from finance and design to governance and community building. Its relevant for the creation of new and renewed communities at all scales.  

Interest in the concept of long-term stewardship continues to gain momentum among politicians and practitioners but realising the full opportunity of this ambition requires an early alignment of policy, finance, political will, and the meaningful participation of local people in the process. The TCPA has produced a wealth of guidance and resources to support those interested in this task.

TCPA guidance on long-term stewardship

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. Dec. 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, Jan. 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

TCPA Online Toolkit

Summary of relevant policy on long-term stewardship 

Case Studies on long-term stewardship 

Stewardship organisations and service charges

Coming soon:

Step by step checklist  

Decision-making flow-chart  

Model policy wording  

Other online resources

• 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