Rosie Barnes, Casey Edwards and Kathryn Robinson report on developments that are bringing the community-led housing numbers to life.
Community-led housing is not often seen as part of the mainstream delivery of affordable housing, but as a small scale, radical approach, operating on the fringes. However, with the enduring national housing crisis, and people being forced to pay unaffordable rents for poor quality homes that put their health at risk, we need a different approach. There is a growing movement of people that want to take a collective and community-led approach to housing, that puts people before profit.
Cwmpas, Wales’ only community-led housing (CLH) hub, is currently supporting 37 active community projects with a pipeline to deliver 276 affordable homes, ranging from social and intermediate rented homes to affordable shared ownership properties. Between March 2023 and April 2024, we supported five projects to submit planning applications for their affordable homes, and nine groups to access seed funding from the Welsh Government’s Perthyn programme, around £100,000, into the hands of community groups. And the movement keeps growing: we received 35 enquiries, and spoke to over 400 people at events and workshops across the country
While these numbers may seem small in comparison to the thousands of homes being delivered by other housing providers, these groups (and remember, the people leading on these projects are doing it on a completely voluntary basis) are pioneering a new way of delivering affordable housing that is tailored to the needs of the local community and taking planners, funders, and developers on that innovative journey with them.
Opportunities to grow the sector
At the most recent cross-party group for coops and mutuals, we were invited, alongside Dr. Tom Archer, senior research fellow at Sheffield Hallam, to discuss how to grow the CLH sector in Wales. We both argued the case for these key changes:
- Supportive planning policies: land disposal policies and procedures for CLH projects, utilising CLH projects to deliver Section 106 requirements, and percentage policies to ensure CLH on specific sites, such as large strategic sites.
- Community ownership: introducing better community ownership rights, which enables community groups to acquire land and sites for affordable CLH.
- Partnership working: local authorities have a key role to play in growing the CLH movement, from political support, officer advice and support to funding, land and a supportive policy environment.
- Funding: the sector needs seed funding, pre-development/at risk grants, access to capital grants, and more low-cost borrowing.
Bringing community-led housing to life
Just talking about data relating to community-led housing projects isn’t enough. So a few weeks ago we co-organised a visit with Tai Tarian to bring together housing professionals, local politicians, and community members from the Neath & Port Talbot area to learn from the excellent work of WeCanMake in Bristol’s Knowle West estate.
WeCanMake is a Community Land Trust (CLT), that has plans ‘to grow the spaces, tools and capacities to collectively imagine and actively anticipate better community-led ways to do housing’.
The CLT has grown out of Bristol’s housing crisis, which sees more than 19,000 households on the social housing waiting list, whilst private rents and house prices continue to spiral out of control. In what might seem like a challenging context for those seeking to put down roots in the city, WeCanMake has sprouted out of the earth in Knowle West with the aim to build on the neighbourhood’s existing assets and strengths and deliver for the people who call it home.
A tour of its factory brought to life the creativity and innovation that goes into WeCanMake’s methods of homebuilding and retrofitting. From a window made from an Ash tree infected with ‘Ash die back’, to sustainable insulation, and coming face to face with the MMC machine that cut the wood panel by panel for their existing homes, it truly was a site of motivation and hope for those of us looking for alternative ways of housing our communities.
Ending the day with a visit to one of their newly built homes, we were all made welcome by residents Toni and her daughter. The CLT’s residents are involved every step of the design and build, leading to visible pride in their home and wider community. A stone’s throw from their existing homes, WeCanMake has recently taken on empty plot of land, which it accessed via the council’s unique land disposal policy accessible only to community-led housing groups. Designs are emerging, led by the community, of course for a three-story building that combines residential and community space.
Keep a close eye on Neath & Port Talbot to see some inspired community-led housing projects getting off the ground!
Rosie Barnes is community-led housing coordinator, Casey Edwards is project advisor: cooperative housing and Kathryn Robinson is community-led housing enabler at Cwmpas. If you’re a housing organisation, council or community-led housing group and are similarly interested in visiting and learning from others – get in touch for our support at co-op.housing@wales.coop.