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London Community Land Trust to boost development by 500%
London’s first community land trust (CLT) is set to grow by more than 500% in the next two years, it has told Inside Housing.
London CLT, which started with a project in St Clements in Mile End, currently owns 23 homes. It said that it plans to deliver 120 more homes by 2021, an increase of 522%.
A CLT is a form of community-led housing, based on the idea that the local community is closely involved with the process of building the homes then owning and managing them long term.
They have increased in popularity over the past year, with figures from the National CLT Network showing that there are now 290 CLTs in England, half of which formed in the past two years.
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Lianna Etkind, campaigns manager at London CLT, told Inside Housing: “We’ve got agreements in place on four sites to deliver 120 homes by 2021, priced according to local incomes.
“By then there will be around 500 people who have the security of living in CLT homes and are enabled to afford to stay in the neighbourhood they call home. We’ve got a pipeline of four sites where there have been provisional agreements on land or we think it’s likely there will be homes built.
“On top of that, there are nine boroughs where there are active campaigns for CLT homes and some political commitments have been made, perhaps in manifestos or in other contexts. But more campaigning will be needed to turn that into more homes being built.”
In June last year, London CLT was selected to develop two Transport for London sites in Tower Hamlets and Lambeth. This was part of City Hall’s attempt to increase the number of homes being built on small sites.
At a national level, housing minister Kit Malthouse announced a £6m fund for community-led housing last month.
The National CLT Network, however, has warned that the government’s £300m fund for this kind of housing could end up being “seriously underallocated” after it was only able to get it off the ground three and a half years into its intended five-year span.
