Whether it is nurturing local talent or providing a platform for rising British bands and artist, grassroots music venues are important both to their local community and the music community at large. Yet across the UK last year, two music venues closed down every single week.

All too often, grassroots venues are being bought up and sold-off by developers – demolished to make way for flats and offices. Right now, there's not much music fans can do to stop it. A music venue can be nominated as an "asset of community value", which will delay any sale by six months to give community groups a chance to put in a bid. But those bids can simply be ignored, and iconic venues lost forever.

That's why as part of our "Own The Stage" campaign, we're calling for an important change in the law for community assets like music venues. It's simple: when a community asset like a pub, community centre or music venue is put up for sale, the community should be given right of first refusal to buy it for a fair price. Instead of being sold-off to developers or investors, our local assets would be community-owned and community-run.

A Community Right to Buy for music venues is just the beginning: to save our music venues, we need to truly own the stage and rethink ownership in the sector from the ground up. Are you with us? Add your name now and back our campaign to save our music venues.