community led housing london

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Practical questions and lively discussion at Community Housing Fund Q&A

Last week we hosted our Community Housing Fund Q&A at Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre and invited community groups, advisers and development partners to put forward practical questions around the prospectus.

The Mayor’s announced of the London Community Housing Fund in January with £38m revenue and capital funding available to community groups looking to develop new homes. We have had significant interest since the launch of the prospectus and the Q&A was a great opportunity to ask specific questions.

Linda Wallace CEO CDS Cooperatives, chairing Q&A

We invited Francesca Lewis, Housing Policy Manager at the GLA, to present the prospectus and join our Project Director Levent Kerimol in answering questions around the funding available.

The fund is split into £30m capital and £8m revenue, to support 500 community led homes starting on site by April 2023. Organisations can apply for funding up to that date or until the funding has been fully committed. We are working alongside the GLA to discuss potential applications with all CLH groups and organisations. So please feel free to get in contact.

We had a great response to our call for questions, with a wide variety from groups and organisations. Linda Wallace, CEO of CDS Co-operatives, chaired an in-depth discussion around the funding as well as on becoming a registered provider.

It was great to have Coin Street Community Builders’ support and hear from Iain Tuckett about their incredible achievements and future plans. Iain shared how building organisational structures and engaging with your local politicians is key in running a successful organisation.

We have collated the questions and answers we received both ahead of the event and on the day, into an FAQ sheet available to download below.

Community Housing Fund FAQ

Community Housing Fund Presentation Slides

£38m Community Housing Fund announced for London

The Community Housing Fund prospectus for London was published today, with £38m available to community housing groups and organisations to deliver successful schemes across the capital until March 2023. This is a significant investment into the sector and can help make community-led housing a consistent part of a diverse London housing market.

We are here to help groups applying to the Community Housing Fund. We can directly fund early stage revenue costs such as feasibility work and development appraisals and will be passing larger applications over to the GLA. All capital funding applications will be managed by the GLA separately.

We’re excited to be working with the GLA to help empower communities and residents to bring forward great projects!

 

Save the Date for CHF Questions

We would like to invite you to our Community Housing Fund afternoon on Friday 15th February, with a chance to talk through the prospectus, and put practical questions to GLA officers. We’ll be in touch with further detail on this in the coming week.

 

Read more

  • you can download the application form for ‘site’ and ‘plan’ stage funding on our support page
  • read more about the fund on the GLA website

Community led housing can deliver quality and density

This week we were at Future of London Leaders’ Alumni breakfast ‘Alternative Housing Delivery Models’ alongside housing associations, developers and local authority officers to share how community led housing can bring about better quality and more affordable homes.

It’s an exciting time for community led housing as the sector has come together around a common definition which has helped to unlock the government support and funding.

Hanover HA forward funded the OWCH scheme ‘New Ground’ Read more

“Perhaps it’s time to rethink housing delivery, opening the market to new, innovative build solutions, putting more control in the hands of communities and delivering housing for all Londoners.”

– Future of London Leaders Alumni

Involving local people and future residents in the development of new homes leads to stronger communities and empowers individuals. In many cases communities can build where others might find it difficult, or can galvanise support for more homes than might otherwise be possible.

Many community led projects have been initiated by grassroots or existing community organisations, however there could be more developers and housing associations initiating projects, and inviting groups to form around projects, to shape and take ownership of them once they are built. We can support both approaches.

Speaking from a local authority perspective, Lewisham’s Housing Strategy Manager, Jeff Endean explained that all approaches should be explored to deliver challenging housing targets. With limited land and resources, local authorities are looking for community-led housing to bring additionality. This will require flexibility and different ways of working among local authorities.

Part of exploring alternative models is to introduce a diverse range of housing options to the market. Naked House was set up by a group of Londoners dissatisfied by over-specified shared-ownership products on offer. Rachel Bagenal explained how financial savings on pared back interior finishes and limited marketing can be passed onto the buyer.

There are plenty of examples of how local authorities can initiate and support community led housing. UCL’s Iqbal Hamiduddin discussed large neighbourhoods in Europe delivered by a series of self-build groups. Clearer planning requirements, and setting a fixed price for each site drove quality, and reduced the risks that discourage people in the UK.

 

 
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CLH Exchange kicks off with great projects and supportive developers

Last Thursday was our first CLH Exchange, an evening of quick-fire talks from London’s community led housing network. Each speaker had six minutes to introduce themselves to the room which left plenty of time for people to catch up, and exchange ideas.

In the first half we heard from CLH organisations who have made significant progress with their visions for affordable community housing.

Lianna shared how London CLT have successfully campaigned for affordable housing across the capital and completed their first project at St. Clements.

Simon from Naked House explained how the non-for-profit company are developing genuinely affordable houses in Enfield by using simple construction methods and paired back interiors on discounted land.

Founding member of RUSS, Kareem, shared how Walter Segal’s self-build housing informed the organisation’s values of construction training, sustainability and affordability.

For the second half, we invited development managers to share their experiences of community led housing and how they can work in partnership with groups to bring forward projects.

Anthony explained how Bioregional work with communities to develop sustainable homes and shared their project with Chobham CIC.

Kym shared some great anecdotes from residents of the Kipling Estate. Igloo Community Builders‘ recently partnered with Leathermarket CBS to build 27 council rent homes at Marklake Court.

Emma from Bringelly has a lot of experience in community led housing and can work with groups to focus on land negotiations, community engagement, advocacy, fundraising and to secure planning permission.

It was great to see familiar faces and meet new people, if you would like to know about any of our future events, sign up to our mailing list.

Exploring CLH options with London’s advisors

Last week we hosted community led housing advisers, consultants working in the sector and some early stage groups to the first session of a wider accreditation programme to be launched later this year. Aimed at community led housing advisers, this session presented all the options available to CLH groups from financial, development and land ownership options to legal structures and long term management considerations. With planners, architects, surveyors, development managers and early stage groups in the room, there was great discussion around definitions and routes to delivery.

With the main national bodies for community-led housing coming together around a common definition, it’s important that groups define their objectives and choose a legal and organisational structure that suits their situation. Together we looked at examples of early stage CLH groups and thought about the questions that needed to be asked, the options available to them what advice we might give. It was great doing this with people from different disciplines and sharing knowledge and experience with others across the room.

The accreditation programme has been prepared by the Confederation of Cooperative Housing in alliance with UK Cohousing Network, National CLT Network, and Locality with funding from Power to Change and the Nationwide Foundation. After being piloted nationwide this summer, the full programme is expected to be launched later this year.

Updates on it’s launch can be found here