The Community Rights programme has been given a £6m funding boost to help people protect local assets and drive forward new developments.
The funding will help 50 local authority and community partnerships to transfer assets into community ownership, as well as supporting 100 more neighbourhoods to use the Our Place approach and develop Community Action Plans.
From March the programme will focus on sharing support through a network of communities, with a new website and phone line offering advice.
Communities minister, Stephen Williams, also awarded six new contracts to support communities in using the Community Rights in 2015 to 2016.
Mr Williams said: ‘This government has trusted local people and given them new rights, introduced by the Localism Act, so they decide how to run their community.
‘Real innovation and impact does not come from the old ways of working but from new ideas, new collaborations, new partnerships and most of all from local people who have the best knowledge.’
