Glossary

Community

This term means a place where people live which can be clearly defined, such as the boundaries of a specific town or village or specific postcode units. Community groups must draw their membership from a community defined in this way.

Community Group

This term means a group where membership is open to a local community, any membership fee is only a nominal amount, the group has a defined aim of benefiting the local community and is non-profit making. The specific legal status of groups can vary, dependent on the scale of the projects they wish to undertake. Only groups actually owning assets are included in this report.

Ownership

Ownership is defined in the legal sense: A legal title coupled with exclusive legal right to possession. This excludes instances where a community group rents or leases an asset or any other arrangement where a community group has the use of an asset, but ownership is not held by a community group.

Asset

This term is used to describe areas of land, buildings and anything else of substantial value a community group may own. This is to reflect that is it not just areas of land that can bring benefits to a community. An asset is counted where it is the subject of a single transaction. Where assets are acquired in a series of transactions, e.g. areas of land which are next to each other and are acquired over time, the assets in each transaction will be counted separately.

Transfer Date

This is the date at which a community group took ownership of an asset, either by purchase or as a gift, legacy or other non-monetary transaction.