Community Led Housing

Community led housing is about local people playing a leading and lasting role in solving local housing problems. It is about creating genuinely affordable homes and strong communities in ways that are difficult to achieve through mainstream housing.

Community led housing proposals should ensure that:

• meaningful community engagement and consent occurs throughout the development process. The community does not necessarily have to initiate and manage the process, or build the homes themselves, though some may do
• the local community group or organisation owns, manages, or stewards the homes in a manner of their choosing; this may be done through a mutually supported arrangement with a Registered Provider that owns the freehold or leasehold for the property; and
• the benefits to the local area and/or specified community must be clearly defined and legally protected in perpetuity

Community led housing is a sector with the housing profession that is gaining increased profile, in part, from the housing affordability issues and the lack of diversity with the mainstream delivery of housing. Often it is a means of delivering affordable housing for the community. However, it is not exclusively about delivering affordable housing as defined in the National Planning Policy Framework.

There are opportunities within Neighbourhood Planning  to support community led housing. Neighbourhood planning gives communities more control over the future of their area by giving local people the chance to have their say on what happens where they live.

There is no one model for community led housing. Most community projects have differing characteristics, and many projects will share and borrow elements of the various community led housing models.

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are a form of community led housing, set up and run by people to develop and manage homes as well as other assets. CLTs act as long-term stewards of land and housing. In this model they may delegate the development work and/or management of the asset to a project partner such as a housing association, or the CLT may become a registered provider themselves. For more information visit the National CLT Network (opens new window) website.

These are groups of self-contained dwellings with the benefit of shared additional facilities which are all managed by a group. The shared facility may be a large kitchen where group meals are shared, or a hall where meetings and classes may be hosted. It can be a communal garden facility. For more information visit the UK Cohousing (opens new window) website.

This is a form of community led housing where it is built (or renovated) and managed by members of a group, with democratic collective control, to influence the scheme and its management. The tenure would be shared ownership or affordable rent. For more information visit The Confederation of Co-operative Housing (opens new window).

This can be a form of community led housing where there is a clear sense of community benefit, protected in perpetuity, from the development. This is where an individual or an association of individuals, or persons working with or for individuals or associations of individuals, build or complete houses to be occupied as homes by those individuals. For more information visit the National Custom and Self Build Association (opens new window) website.

Community led housing can involve homes that are market sale, discount market sale, shared ownership, market rent, affordable rent, rent to buy, or a combination thereof. Its diversity is its strength and means that it can tackle a wide range of housing needs.

Community led housing can empower local communities, making them more resilient and able to address issues in their community, such as:

• affordable housing
• need for downsizer accommodation
• ageing population/accessibility
• first time buyers
• supporting community facilities
• fuel poverty

There is no standard approach for achieving community led housing. However, there are generally 5 stages to the 'total process' of community led housing:

1. group
2. site
3. plan
4. build
5. live

Community led housing groups will not necessarily follow the total process in a linear way and are likely to move between each of the stages at different times through the process.

Without a community group, there can be no community led housing. Groups may be new, or already exist. They may be formed by a collection of individuals, a parish council or even a developer looking to work in partnership with the community to deliver a project.

In the group stage it will be necessary to form a steering group, determine the group's purpose, recruit members, form a delivery plan and become an incorporated legal entity.

Moving into the next stages the group will need to identify what skills they have, what skills they will need to develop, recruit, secure through partnership and procure. This will assist them through identifying their site and negotiating a land deal; designing the homes and obtaining the necessary consents such as planning permission; working through the construction (or renovation) of the homes and provision of associated infrastructure; and finally getting people into homes and managing those assets in perpetuity.

Around the UK there are several examples of community led housing, for example there are over 800 co-op housing organisations alone. The community led sector is growing and Wiltshire is experiencing a growth in the community land trust model.

Seend Community Land and Asset Trust is working with White Horse Housing Association to deliver an impressive affordable housing project for the benefit of its parishioners. It has ambitions for wider development too, to help address the need for downsizer accommodation within their villages. For more information visit the Seend CLT (opens new window) website.

Wilton Community Land Trust have formed a partnership with Our Enterprise and Redrow Homes and helped to shape and deliver the redevelopment of the redundant MoD's Erskine Barracks site for over 400 homes. They have also organised the South Wiltshire Green Doors project and a small river clearance project. For more information visit the Wilton CLT (opens new window) website.

There is funding available locally and nationally for Community Led Housing Groups at different stages of their development, from start-up to revenue and capital funding.

More information on national funding on funding sources can be found on Community Land Trust Network: Community Led Homes (opens new window).