The Charter For Communities
We believe in community rights – and that people are the solution, not the problem.
Our Charter gives communities both protections and opportunities to drive positive change in our local areas.
Write to your MP
In July 2025, The Government introduced the England Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, with an aim being to ‘give communities stronger tools to shape their local areas’. The Community Charter gives people and places the basic rights they need to shape local decisions, protect their environment, and build healthier, fairer communities.
Write to your MP to tell them you support the inclusion of the Community Charter in the Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill.
About the Charter for Communities
Communities across England face big challenges — from the climate crisis and poor housing to disconnection and division. Too often, decisions are made far away in Whitehall, leaving local voices unheard.
Our Community Charter recognises that people are already creating solutions — from community energy to housing projects, green spaces and local initiatives that bring people together. With the right support, these efforts can strengthen our health, wellbeing and democracy.
Why It Matters
• Communities are often treated as problems to manage, rather than partners in shaping the future.
• Local voices are sidelined as decision making is centralised.
• The government’s Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill fails to give people real power over their own places.
• Our Charter shifts the balance. It gives people the rights they need to protect where they live, influence decisions, and build thriving, connected communities.
The Seven Rights
The Charter draws on international law and existing models of good practice. All are credible, achievable and already recognised elsewhere — just not yet implemented in England.
1. A clean and healthy environment (UN human right, 2022)
2. A healthy home (drafted into UK legislation but not yet passed)
3. The right to play (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child)
4. The right to grow food on public land (proposed in previous UK planning amendments)
5. The right to roam and swim (already law in Scotland)
6. A voice in local decisions (Aarhus Convention, now an EU directive)
7. The right to challenge decisions (in line with Aarhus principles and earlier UK proposals)
What’s Next
This Charter is an invitation to rethink how we work together — government and citizens, state and community. It builds on international conventions and proven ideas, but places people and places at the heart of decision-making.
By recognising these rights, we can unleash the energy of communities to create fairer, healthier and more hopeful futures.
This charter has been developed by people who care about who makes the decisions that affect the places we live. Find out more about Rights Community Action and sign up to our subscriber list here
For any queries, please email charter@rightscommunityaction.co.uk.
Signatures
We already live in the one of the most centralised systems in the modern world. To take away local involvement in planning decisions make this even worse. These decisions should be left with local communities and power should not be handed to developers and Westminster. We have already seen how…
Charles Haward SI am trying to save a mosaic of habitats ( wood and scrub land and a large reed-bed) from being used as a building site.
Jenny WWe desperately need planning to be more democratic, not less, so that local communities can be invested in ensuring development meets local needs and reflects the imperative for real sustainability
Callie LThese planning reforms are a shameful power grab, to the benefit of developers and landlords at the expense of communities and pretty much everyone else.
Andrew WI am concerned that the environment will be pushed to the background as priority is given to commercial and housing applications. I am also concerned that social housing, affordable housing will not be prioritised. •I would like local people to make decisions. •I would like planning decisions that turned down…
Madeleine J C MA very retrograde bill. What is needed is more power devolved to local government local mayors and citizens
Antonia BWhat ever happened to localism? People should have the right to participate in, comment on, and contribute to what happens to their neighbourhood, as in Neighbourhood Plans. Give planning decisions back to councils and allow democractic participation in the planning process.
Felicity TSO NOW ONLY PROFITEERS ARE BEING HEARD …..these businesses that make money out of all these estates they build don't ever live in them so why are they the only people to have a say in the planning of them Ok build more housing but only after consultation and agreement…
jacqueline lPlanning is a very important environmental tool that helped to safeguard our wildlife, give us access to the countryside that benefited our health and wellbeing, and enabled sustainable, less intensive farming. It enabled healthier sourcing of food, and more environmental way of living that is inspiring and sustainable. It is…
Lizzie BComment on charter This clear statement on the democratic deficit is very important. Citizens are not parochial by-standers in the triple crisis of inequality-wellbeing-environment. To tackle these strategic problems the public needs to be engaged with law-making and development decisions at all tiers of government. This is necessary for democratic…
Lucy N