Digital Commons Cooperative

Building community-led tech that supports a more regenerative and fair society depends on access to land data. There’s a move at the Land Registry to make land data more open and accessible, but there’s still a long way to go. Here are five key recommendations we believe the Land Registry should focus on and why they matter: ✅ Free access to core land datasets for community groups and campaigners. Right now, information that is crucial for land justice is behind a huge paywall (💰 over £20,000 per year 💰 ). There should be a license that allows civic access to this data. ✅ Improve data interoperability. Include consistent identifiers and make leasehold data visible so land information can link easily across datasets. This would make it simple for communities to see who really controls land. ✅ Recognise and fund civil society users. Community groups and co-ops rely on land data. Design APIs and funding streams with their needs in mind to support public-benefit uses of data. ✅ Commit to data stability. Provide version control, advance notice of changes, and strong documentation so tools like Land Explorer can depend on Land Registry data. ✅ Enable UK-wide interoperability. Work toward alignment with Scottish and Northern Irish land data to improve transparency and understanding across the whole UK. Read our full report into how community groups are using land data here 👉 https://lnkd.in/djGBgxFQ And if you’re a community group or campaigner who agrees with these recommendations, please reach out! We’d love to connect and help you use our tools for real-world impact. 👉 hello [at] digitalcommons [dot] coop

This report captures a range of ways in which communities could use open data on land ownership to further the sustainability of their local area. We in the Community Land Trust Network fully support all the recommendations, which would lower the costs to identify land and landowners that CLTs could acquire to develop homes and workspace and community spaces, restore nature etc.

As Digital Commons Cooperative say in their introduction to their important new report: "Who owns land is one of the most important, and opaque, questions in the UK today. For communities trying to respond to the challenges of our times - from the #housingcrisis to #climatebreakdown - the simple act of finding out who owns the land around them can be a major barrier. "Transparent #landownership #data is a critical enabler of community action. Whether people are seeking access to green space, organising to create a community garden, mobilising to count and monitor bird and insect species, or looking for sites for community-owned #energy, knowing who owns what allows people to organise, evaluate and ultimately act. If we want communities to step up and solve problems locally they need to be empowered to do so. #Accesstoland ownership information is a vital step in that empowerment." #CommunityEnergy #OpenData

Check out these great new features on the wonderful Land Explorer tool from the inspirational bunch at Digital Commons Cooperative:

Fab new functionality from the Land Explorer map - check out who owns the land around you... and then use that info for the benefit of your community 🗺️👀 💪

🚀 Two brand NEW features just dropped in Land Explorer (our free tool that helps you uncover who owns the land around you!) 🌱 Make sure to sign up to our newsletter to be the first to know when more new features are released: https://lnkd.in/ePpZa2T4 WHAT'S NEW: 1. 🗺️ See all unregistered land in your area: 
If you’ve been trying to find out which land around you isn’t registered, you can now see it at a glance. We had been asked to introduce this feature to help organisers and community groups identify potential spaces for regeneration projects. We’re curious how your group will use this layer in your work.... 2. 🎨 Updated colour-coded ownership layers
: We’ve made it easier to visually tell the difference between ownership types. Whether land is company-owned, privately-owned, or unregistered land, it’s now easier to tell them apart. We hope this change makes it faster to see who owns what. Go take a look! We welcome your feedback: https://landexplorer.coop/ 

What happens when you show people and communities who owns the land around them? Good stuff happens! We built an interactive map in LandExplorer so people could find corporate owners of land around them for free. Over 18 months we asked these communities how they were using this information. We heard stories a community energy projects, wildlife monitoring, opening green spaces, community gardens, housing coops and so much more. I'm really proud of this report and the work we've been doing with LandExplorer. Now we just need to update the data... Currently our data update is blocked because we can't buy the £20k/yr license that links together all the otherwise open data sets. We're still trying to have a conversation with folks at the Land Registry to find a way unblock this.

🔍🌱 Who owns land is one of the most opaque and important questions in the UK today... Hundreds of community groups and people have used our tool Land Explorer to find out who owns what across the UK. Our new report shows that 65% of the people using our tool are working for community benefit, not for profit. It’s clear that open, reliable land data empowers local groups to build community energy projects, fight for ecological regeneration, grow food locally, and campaign for housing justice. This power shouldn’t be locked behind a paywall. Currently this data is extremely expensive for community groups and campaigners to access, is fragmented, and is incomplete. This power imbalance prevents community groups from having the whole picture of who owns what. It’s time for the Land Registry to make their land ownership data more open for community groups. Our report shows that regularly updated, transparent ownership data will provide huge value to communities across the UK. Read our report here: https://lnkd.in/djGBgxFQ

💫 Last week the Digital Commons team (minus the wonderful Lynne) had a brilliant away day together in Birmingham. It gave us a chance to step back, reflect, and plan what’s next for our tools and partnerships. Meeting colleagues IRL always gives us the chance to remember what drives our team and the work we do. In a world where a small number of tech companies hold and control vast amounts of data, access to information is uneven. Much of it sits behind paywalls, locked up in formats that are difficult or impossible for small organisations and social movements to use. We are working to offer a counterweight to that model. ✊ Our aim is to build tools that make data open, understandable, and useful so that communities, campaigners, and cooperatives can use it to organise, expose injustice, and build collective alternatives. We believe that technology, when built and governed collectively, helps to shift power away from corporations and back toward communities. Make sure to sign up for our newsletter to receive regular updates on our work. Go here to sign up 👉 https://lnkd.in/ePpZa2T4

Hello! It’s time to re-introduce ourselves. We’re Digital Commons Co-op 👋 We build tech tools for social change, working alongside movements to turn data into knowledge. We’ve built: 🌱 Land Explorer: a mapping tool for finding and evaluating land for community projects 👉 https://landexplorer.coop/ 📍 Mykomaps: a platform for connecting and collaborating with co-ops worldwide 👉 https://lnkd.in/dk8g-YDs If you’re part of a movement or community group that's fighting the housing crisis, starting a community garden, protecting local green space, rewilding land, or something else, our tools can help. Get in touch to learn more! hello@digitalcommons.coop