Beginnings
Conceiving and supporting cocreation of the UK's first Community Charters.The first Community Charters
The Community Chartering Network (CCN) was founded in 2012 to explore new models of community-led regeneration at Schumacher College. which emerged from a workshop involving the Earth Law Alliance and the UK Transition Network. Inspired by historic, rights-based legal declarations such as the 1217 Charter of the Forest, the idea was whether this tradition might be revived for modern times—giving communities a way to define and protect what they value. Another inspiration was the development of the Community Bill of Rights Movement in the USA
The Falkirk Charter: A Turning Point
At the same time, at the other end of the country, Scottish communities were waking up to the UK’s first application to commercialise onshore unconventional gas (“fracking”). An informal group of local residents—later to become the Concerned Communities of Falkirk (CCoF)—came together in response. A coincidental connection led to the nascent CCN supporting them to pioneer a new approach: the resident-led cocreation of the UK’s first Community Charter.
Launched in 2013, the Falkirk Charter articulated a shared vision for sustainable development—recording local assets, values and aspirations, and asserting the community’s duty to pass these on in better condition to future generations. It was soon adopted by five local Community Councils and endorsed by half of all Falkirk councillors.
Then in 2014, the Scottish Government recognised it formally, allowing it to frame a community-impacts session at the public inquiry into the gas application—among the largest, longest, and most consequential national planning inquiry in recent Scottish history. Throughout the inquiry, two members of CCN sat alongside KC Sir Crispen Agnew, the advocate for Falkirk communities, acting as legal support and laison with residents and expert witnesses. This gave local people a unique opportunity to speak from their own lived experience of place. Their testimonies and the Charter itself became central to the community’s case.
A Growing Network
The Falkirk Charter reframed negatives as positives—not “fighting against” but “fighting for” assets of shared importance: both places and qualities. It provided precedent for how collective visioning might unify communities and redefine sustainability from the ground up, which CCN have continued to explore and evolve in subsequent years.
Since Falkirk, CCN has gone on to support the development of further Charters across the UK, including the St Ives Community Charter, launched in 2017 with a public procession and unfurling of the Charter scroll. New initiatives have emerged elsewhere, including in North Yorkshire and Dartington, generating Europe-wide interest, and continuing the story of communities reclaiming their right to articulate their own futures.
The Charter captures all things which create pride in the places we live and respect for ourselves and each other…things which allow growth, harmony, well-being and for our community to thrive.
We are more than happy to have a written expression of what residents value for growing a positive vision of community, the dynamic cultural heritage expressed in the Charter featuring positive developments in all walks of life while seeking to negate detrimental influences.
Process
The process which gave rise to the Falkirk Charter began with a series of public meetings. These were based on a World Café model, and well-attended by a diverse mix of local residents.
CCN designed six questions to nurture the sharing of local experiences, values, aspirations and beliefs. At the meetings, questions were allocated to tables together with a roll of paper. Residents volunteered to facilitate the discussion at each.
For 90 minutes, participants moved freely from table to table, noting down key points and ideas on the paper as they went.
Based on the meeting outputs and discussion, CCN proposed 5 principles which might form the foundation of a Charter: stability, peace-of-mind, public and environmental health, and agency. In a further public meeting, consensus was reached that agency was paramount. Residents deemed that without agency, they would be powerless to act upon the others.
Next CCN returned to the outputs to discern things residents held in common to be important to their health and well-being. A final public meeting was then convened to discuss these ‘assets’. Sixteen were agreed, including a clean and safe environment, community resilience and continuity, the sanctuary of the home, and the diversity and stability of the local ecosystem.
Together the assets were termed the ‘cultural heritage’, or the irreducible inseparable fabric of the community. Also agreed at the meeting were local rights and responsibilities to protect and improve the cultural heritage for future generations, and how these might be enacted within the existing planning framework.
CCN then brought all this together into a single Community Charter document. The Charter is intended to be a living document, updated periodically in accordance with changing local circumstances and aspirations. For example, before each new Community Council adopts the Falkirk Charter, they are given the opportunity to include new assets specific to their own cultural heritage.