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Why now is the time to start paying attention to community-led housing

Community land trusts (CLTs) puts local people in control and can mobilise support for more homebuilding, says Catherine Harrington

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Community land trusts puts local people in control and can mobilise support for more homebuilding, says National CLT Network director Catherine Harrington. #ukhousing

It’s easy to feel daunted by the sheer scale of the country’s housing problem, focus on large scale solutions or what the established players can do and dismiss the contribution that more ‘niche’ parts of the sector can make.

But as we wait for the launch of the multimillion Community Housing Fund (government investment that the National Community Land Trust Network and its members have lobbied for), the search for answers needn’t be so hard. In fact, the wider housing sector could learn from this burgeoning movement.

“The wider housing sector could learn from this burgeoning movement.”

Community-led housing is a vibrant and rapidly growing sector where people are coming up with their own solutions to housing problems in their area. That includes CLTs, Co-housing, development trusts, self-help housing – all of which build on a long tradition of co-operative housing.


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They are demanding something different to what is being provided by the mainstream.

With great ingenuity, spirit and sheer dogged determination communities are innovating to come up with new housing solutions, including more ‘genuinely’ affordable homes – London CLT, for example, is building inner-city homes for sale with prices pegged to median incomes.

So why should social housing providers be taking more notice of community-led housing? Because the sector is demonstrating that you can get local people in their droves to back more building.

“The sector is demonstrating that you can get local people in their droves to back more building.”

In Dartmoor, Christow CLT’s scheme of 18 homes achieved planning consent with no objections, unusual for a new housing scheme in the National Park. Rural Urban Synthesis Society CLT in Lewisham has recently achieved unanimous support at planning for 33 one to four-bed homes – the council had previously planned for a maximum of six private houses on the site. St Ann’s Redevelopment Trust in Haringey plans to build 800 homes on a former hospital site that originally received a planning application for just 470 homes, only 14% of which were affordable.

How so? Because community-led housing puts local people firmly in control. They are led by the community, trusted by the community and, in the case of CLTs, have at their heart the principle of building homes that are truly affordable to local people in perpetuity. These qualities are enshrined in the statutory definition of a CLT and differentiate them from even the most consultative of mainstream housing providers.

The government has seen the potential of community-led housing – hence the commitment to invest £300m through the Community Housing Fund – and so too have a handful of housing associations and developers who are leading the way in partnering with community-led housing organisations, for instance:

  • Yarlington Housing Group, where CLTs and rural development now go hand in hand. Considering it a no brainer, they’ve completely changed their approach to new rural housing and are supporting several groups in the South West
  • Hanover Housing Association supported the groundbreaking and multi-award winning Older Women’s Co-Housing scheme – a truly inspirational story of a group of older women taking charge of their own lives in later life
  • CDS Co-operatives have a business priority to support the development of community-led housing and have played a key role in working with the Greater London Authority to create a community-led housing hub for London

But these pioneers remain the minority and it’s about time that all housing providers started to take notice.

People want to have more control in what happens in their neighbourhood. They are demanding it.

“People want to have more control in what happens in their neighbourhood. They are demanding it.”

This is more than tenant voice. This is more than participation. This is genuine control. Our challenge to housing providers is why not at last embrace this enthusiasm, energy and desire for change and harness it for the benefit of all.

Catherine Harrington, director, National CLT Network

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