In English village history, the commons was shared land. Everyone had the right to use it. Everyone had the responsibility to maintain it. GreatApe Commons brings that principle forward — a space for communities to identify real problems and organise to fix them, without waiting for permission.
What it is
Local people used to look after local things. That didn't stop being possible — it stopped being the habit. GreatApe Commons is about getting the habit back.
Most local problems have a lawful route that almost nobody knows exists — community asset transfer, verge adoption schemes, maintenance licences, meanwhile use agreements. The knowledge gap is the real blocker, not the council. Commons surfaces those routes, connects the people who can use them, and gets things moving.
"Local people have always been the ones who actually know what needs doing. They live there. They see it every day. The question is never whether the will exists — it's whether the right people have found each other yet."
GreatApe Commons is a community project — always free. The commercial side of GreatApe funds the platform. Community projects are what it stands for.
The same five-part structure applies to every project on the platform — hemp fibre, direct farm sales — because the philosophy is identical. Real problem. Real evidence. Real plan. The distinction between commercial and community matters less than whether the problem is genuine.
The Structure
Each of the five parts asks something specific. None of them can be skipped. Together they turn a complaint into a proposal.
What is actually broken. One paragraph. No venting, no historical background — the specific situation that needs fixing.
A reader who knows nothing about the area should understand the problem after reading this once.
Data, records, first-hand accounts, correspondence. The evidence doesn't have to be overwhelming — it has to be real.
Council minutes, FOI requests, incident reports, waiting lists, survey results — all count.
Not a wish. Not "someone should do something." A defined action that a specific set of people could take.
If you can't name the proposal in a single sentence, it isn't specific enough yet.
Reference examples from elsewhere. A plan. Evidence that this type of solution has worked before, somewhere, for someone.
A named place that did the same thing and it worked is more persuasive than any amount of reasoning from first principles.
Skills, people, resources, commitments. What are you looking for? Be specific — this is how people know whether they can help.
Name the roles. Estimate the volunteer hours. Say what a committed person would actually be signing up to.
Worked Examples
Three types of community problem, all going through the same structure. These are not active GreatApe projects — they show how the template applies at different scales.
The roundabout in the centre of town is a mess — compacted soil, litter, a few tired shrubs that haven't been touched in years. Everyone who drives past it has an opinion. The opinions stay on Facebook. The roundabout stays ugly. The energy spent complaining could have planted the thing twice over.
Photographs showing current state. A quick survey of local residents or a look at the town Facebook group will confirm the complaint exists and is widespread. Council maintenance records — obtainable by email — will typically show the last intervention was years ago and nothing is planned.
A community planting scheme — native wildflowers, hardy shrubs, seasonal colour. A small constituted group takes on maintenance under a simple licence from the council or highways authority. The roundabout becomes something worth looking at. The complaints stop because the problem is gone.
Community roundabout adoption schemes run in towns across the UK. Many councils actively encourage them — it saves maintenance budget and improves the public realm at no cost to the authority. In Bloom and similar programmes have model agreements ready to use. A group of four people and a few Saturdays a year is typically enough to maintain a roundabout planting indefinitely.
One person to contact the council and request a community maintenance licence — usually a single email to the highways or parks team. Three or four people willing to show up for an initial planting day and a couple of maintenance visits a year. A modest budget for plants, or a local nursery willing to donate. Estimated time from first contact to planted roundabout: six to ten weeks.
The town has no farm shop, no veg box delivery, and no market stall selling local produce. The Wednesday market stopped in 2019 when the main greengrocer retired. Three farms within 8 miles sell direct from their websites — none has a town presence. The nearest supermarket is 9 miles away.
The GreatApe UK Local Food Directory shows no active producer covering the town's postcode. A call to all three farms confirmed they sell direct but have no local distribution point. A brief survey of 40 residents at the Saturday craft market found 31 who would buy farm produce weekly if a regular collection point existed within the town.
A weekly collection point — one morning a week, one existing venue, coordinating supply from two of the three farms. No permanent infrastructure. The collection runs for two hours in a pub or church hall car park already empty on the chosen day.
This model is in active use. The Veg Box People (Manchester) has coordinated collection points since 2015 with no permanent infrastructure. Locavore (Glasgow) operates a similar network. The required commitment from a producer is small: 30 confirmed customers gives a farm the volume confidence to show up week after week.
One person to have three conversations with the local farms and confirm two are willing to supply. A venue owner willing to host a weekly collection in their car park. Thirty households prepared to commit to buying weekly. No funding required. No infrastructure. No ongoing overhead beyond showing up.
A 0.8-acre council-owned site in the town centre has been derelict since 2014, when a planning permission for housing lapsed. The site is fenced and subject to regular fly-tipping. The council allotment waiting list stands at 74 names. Current average wait: over five years.
A Freedom of Information request confirmed the council has no development plans for the site in the next five years and that fencing and maintenance costs the council £800 per year. Planning Portal shows no active or pending application. The allotment waiting list stands at 74 (FOI, April 2025). Three community groups have approached the council about the site in two years with no formal response.
A Community Asset Transfer — a five-year licence from the council giving a constituted community group management of the site. The group clears it, lays it out as 20 growing plots, and self-funds through annual plot subscriptions. The council's maintenance cost drops to zero.
Community Asset Transfer has been used for exactly this type of site by councils across England. The CSA Network has model constitutions and licence agreements written for community growing groups. A scheme of 20 paying members at a modest annual rate covers basic site costs. The legal and administrative work can typically be completed with a single pro-bono solicitor session.
Three people willing to form a constituted community group. Someone with — or willing to acquire — experience of Community Asset Transfer applications. Four people to turn up for the initial site clearance. Twenty households willing to commit to a growing plot subscription. Estimated total volunteer time before first planting: 60 hours across the group.
Help shape this
Commons isn't built yet. If you have a problem in mind — something local, something that should be fixed — tell us about it. Early input shapes what this becomes. No commitment on either side.