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Community-led housing should be playing a bigger role in delivery
Charity HACT has worked to produce a guide for social landlords on how to support community-led housing projects. Barry Malki explains more
A few years ago, a colleague had a conversation with a clerk in a mid-sized town in Buckinghamshire.
There was a small parcel of land available in the town, but because it was on the green belt and came with Section 106 requirements, local private developers wouldn’t touch it.
“Would your organisation like it?” the clerk asked my colleague.
Overjoyed, the next day he doorstepped his head of development, proudly telling her about the possibility of the piece of land.
“It’s too small,” came the reply.
“Community-led housing involves local people solving housing problems.”
And this, I explained to my colleague when they told me the story, is why community-led housing is so important.
Many of the housing associations that HACT helped to create as part of the ‘Cathy Come Home’ generation in the 1960s have their roots in community-led housing.
Some of their first homes were empty properties that they brought back into use.
Since then, HACT has continued to support the transformation and development of the community-led housing sector.
Community-led housing involves local people solving housing problems by building new homes, returning empty homes to use or managing existing homes. It should be playing an important part in alleviating the housing shortage.
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The community-led housing sector itself is well supported – there are a number of different models and agencies who are able to help local groups to turn their ideas into homes.
Two years ago, at the end of the empty homes community grants programme, we brokered discussions about community-led housing with some of the leading proponents in the sector.
“People told us that when local authority and housing professionals were approached by a local community housing group, they were often unsure about what to do.”
One issue that cropped up repeatedly was the need for a central resource hub aimed at local authorities and housing associations.
People told us that when local authority and housing professionals were approached by a local community housing group, they were often unsure about what to do or where to turn to for information. All too often, they had to reinvent the wheel.
Consequently, some projects were delayed for years. Others were consigned to the filing cabinet, never to see the light of day.
This is where the CLH toolkit comes in.
The toolkit is a central resource hub for planning, legal and financial professionals in local authorities and housing associations, so they can support and deliver local community-led housing schemes.
For the first time, it brings together all the specialist documentation and advice they need, as well as examples of successful community-led housing schemes, funding tips and signposts to further information.
If, for example, you’re in the planning department and want to know whether you can use a rural exception site for a community-led housing scheme, the toolkit provides the answer.
HACT worked with specialists from within the sector to plan, develop and write the content for the toolkit. We consulted regularly with industry experts, as well as staff from local and central government, to ensure the toolkit was robust, timely and comprehensive.
As well as providing the necessary information for local authority officials, the free toolkit is also invaluable for housing associations, who can use it as part of their broader social purpose. Some housing associations are already working with local community groups – Yarlington Housing Group, for example, was selected by the Corry Valley Community Land Trust to develop and manage six “beautiful homes for local people” in a village in Devon.
So if you’re offered a small parcel of land in the near future, you know where to come.
Barry Malki, head of communities, HACT
