There are already Assets of Community Value listed by councils. It is therefore essential to first check your council’s list to make sure are you are not duplicating work that has already been done. Looking at the existing Assets of Community Value will also give you good local examples to point to that people can relate to (e.g. the library may have been listed but not the post office). This list, along which any which you yourself can think of can provide the basis of your mapping exercise.

Note, not everything can be an Asset of Community Value. This guide about what can and can’t be an Asset and Community Value is comprehensive and short.

You should also look through the information the council requires to make a listing.

It is going to be harder than normal to undertake a mapping exercise whilst we are all home and socially distancing. But what you can do is start a conversation with branch members and councillors about what local assets they value.

If you have done your pre-mapping you should have the list of current local Assets of Community Value to act as a helpful prompt. Together with your own thoughts you should have enough examples to kick start a discussion.

Be creative. You might not be able to go and see a potential asset yourself right now, but in many cases you can use googlemaps to view the site.

Importantly, people and communities value will vary. For some areas, abandoned buildings represent potential; in other areas it will be established play areas which are valued more – so expect people to come up with very different ideas.

It is possible you may have too many ideas and whilst we don’t want to rein in your imagination, we also want to have a manageable number of potential Assets of Community Value in this stage of the campaign. What we’re asking branches initially to draw up a shortlist and we will then create digital petitions for you to campaign on whilst we are still all being asked to stay at home.

You may find this guide to community mapping useful background reading.

Having discussed the potential sites with branch members and councillors you should be in a strong position to produce a shortlist – and we want to hear from you about that list in order to create an electronic petition.

When drawing up a shortlist you might want to consider geography to ensure that you are not focusing on one area; you might want to consider what you think of spots that you think it will be easy to get signatures; if you are a council candidate you might want to choose a local well-known facility or site and what will be easiest and best to campaign on.

We want you to provide us with the name and address of the spot, a short description of it, and if you know the names of the current occupants of the land and names/addresses of those holding a freehold or leasehold do let us know.