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The story of a youth-led community land trust housing campaign
Twenty-year-old Constantino Christou explains how he led a campaign to provide affordable housing in Lambeth and is now working to deliver new homes through a community land trust.
On 14 June 2018, the one year anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire, I received the news that Lambeth CLT’s bid for a plot of Transport For London-owned land had been successful.
This news meant that I had become one of the first young people in London to lead and win a community land trust (CLT) housing campaign. Despite only being 20, this win had been over two years in the making.
The campaign was first conceived back in late 2015, when a group of young South Londoners (participants in a social change fellowship called The Advocacy Academy) decided that we wanted to start a grassroots campaign to tackle the local housing crisis.
Collaborating with Citizens UK, we met over the course of two years to get local councillors on board with our concept.
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It began as an attempt to use the traction of Citizens’ Living Wage campaign to establish a ’living rent’ concept.
However, in our first meeting with councillor Matthew Bennett of Lambeth Council, he took more interest in the CLT idea, so we changed our approach to push for a CLT in Lambeth. He noted that it was something he hadn’t come across before; problems as complex as the housing crisis require innovative solutions, after all.
Once we graduated from the programme, five of us were invited to continue to carry the campaign forward as chairs.
The chairs, along with our mentors James Asfa from Citizens and Amelia Viney (founder of the Advocacy Academy) then took on the job of identifying potential sites by travelling across the borough and rating several plots in the area to gauge their suitability.
The Christchurch Road site ticked all the right boxes; it is large, it is unused, it is visible, it sits in an established residential area and would be a prime location for key service workers. Though registered as public ‘green space’ on government databases, the site was entirely fenced off and so was not accessible to the community.
It then took further meetings with both Lambeth council and TFL to prove the feasibility of our plans and the credibility of our team, which eventually proved successful.
Rough plans were created by an architecture student to map out how the potential of the site could be unlocked, which local councillors were invited to see at a meeting back in April. At this stage, our enthusiasm became cautious optimism.
The plans are rough at this stage, but we’re aiming for around 20 homes, enough to house around 80 people. In addition, we’re looking to keep the protected trees and create some open green space in front of the site. In addition, a small community centre/space would be an additional feature that we’re hoping to include
The campaign gained momentum following the Mayor’s announcement of the ‘Small Sites, Small Builders’ programme, which specifically included the Christchurch Road site. Various members of the team then worked collaboratively to write a bid for the land, detailing our vision. After a competitive bidding process, we received the news that our bid had been successful.
“We want to redefine how communities organise themselves and affect meaningful change.”
Although the Mayor has recently been criticized for the scale of this scheme, there is far more to this campaign than scale alone. Firstly, there is a commitment to housing local people in housing that is both affordable and of a high standard, not just one or the other. Secondly, there is an emphasis on sustainability; these homes will remain affordable for years to come, unaffected by market volatility.
Above all, this campaign seeks to create a legacy for community initiatives going forward.
We want to redefine how communities organise themselves and affect meaningful change at a time where local people feel increasingly powerless in the face of larger political and economic entities
As we approach the planning permission stage in our campaign, we will continue to ensure that the voices of the community are amplified and heard amidst the chaos of the housing crisis.
Constantino Christou, chair, Lambeth CLT campaign
What is a Community Land Trust?
According to the National Community Land Trust (CLT) Network, CLT's "are a form of community-led housing, set up and run by ordinary people to develop and manage homes as well as other assets important to that community, like community enterprises, food growing or workspaces."
They "act as long-term stewards of housing, ensuring that it remains genuinely affordable, based on what people actually earn in their area, not just for now but for every future occupier"
The network says schemes that are genuinely community led share these common principles:
1. The community is integrally involved throughout the process in key decisions like what is provided, where, and for who. They don’t necessarily have to initiate the conversation, or build homes themselves.
2. There is a presumption that the community group will take a long term formal role in the ownership, stewardship or management of the homes.
3. The benefits of the scheme to the local area and/or specified community group are clearly defined and legally protected in perpetuity.
