Community Land Trust Network

Josh Westerling, Nick Plumb and Ailbhe (Alva) McNabola have written a brilliant paper for Power to Change on how strong and communities could be the foundation for cohesion and growth. So much to agree with in this, but a few additional suggestions from me. They recommend that developers and landowners work with community organisations to build and transfer ownership of social infrastructure, referencing Sherford CLT as a good example. Plunkett UK and the Community Land Trust Network could provide many, many more examples. The mechanism to do this is planning policy - it should be written into the NPPF, and into the rules for Homes England and Development Corporations and other public agencies shaping development. They recommend that the English Devolution Bill give communities a Right to Control Investment such as the UK Shared Prosperity Fund where there is an accountable local body. There's a precedent in the 'neighbourhood share' of the Community Infrastructure Levy, which could easily be extended to the 2/3rds of non-parished areas of England by allowing other accountable community bodies like CLTs to be nominated by the council to receive the share (and have a right to request this, with a process of appeal). Their proposal for a Community Growth Network, modelled on the New Schools Network, echoes a proposal from Owen Jarvis, Blase Lambert and I for an endowed foundation able to develop community-led development institutions. But a nuanced difference is that ours wasn't for entirely community-level institutions - we thought it should help to create a small cadre of regional and national institutions more capable of convening the professional skills, access to private capital, etc. to then partner with and support community businesses to develop and deliver their objectives. This mixed-level infrastructure was one of the key ingredients in the success of the co-operative economies in the north of Italy and Spain. They say combined authorities should include the social economy as part of Local Growth Plans. This might also connect to Mark Gregory's proposal that funds like the Community Ownership Fund are coordinated by local/combined authorities with reference to these plans, and to Local (development) Plans. So the social economy is wired into their economic and planning strategies - a particular opportunity where combined authorities are likely to gain new strategic planning powers. Lots more in there - dig in! https://lnkd.in/e84Pt4fj

When many of us think of Community Land Trusts we think about affordable houses. We don't always think about the assets that are in community ownership providing the utilities that these homes need to be places where people, families and communities can live and thrive. In fact, over 100 CLTs already own and steward water assets, mostly on a small scale - and there are real social, economic and environmental benefits to this community stewardship. We've partnered with Arup, United Utilities and CLES - Centre for Local Economic Strategies on the Enabling Water Smart Communities programme to explore the role that community stewardship of assets can play in a world where water scarcity, flood risk and housing growth are increasingly causing concern. https://lnkd.in/eKpTY9rH Read our article for more information, including a case study from KENNETT COMMUNITY LAND TRUST LIMITED, who will steward 60 affordable homes, as well as all of the open space, commercial assets and public amenities in the 500 home Kennett Garden Village development

Our CEO, Tom Chance, has now written to Alex Norris MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Local Growth and Building Safety) in support of his aims to promote community ownership and the co-operative economy, as well as urging a greater ambition for community-led regeneration. Take a look at the proposals set out in the letter here (https://lnkd.in/e3sUMxpD). In this letter, Tom urges three key components of a community ownership strategy that would truly support community-led development: 1) Design specific powers and funds like the community right to buy and the community ownership fund to enable community-led development in the broadest sense, to meet future needs and not just to protect existing assets. 2) Align more public funds, and seek to shape the investment of private finance, so that they result in more assets of all kinds in community ownership. There is a particular opportunity for place-based funding such as through Homes England and combined Authorities. 3) Support the development of intermediaries able to move quickly and at scale, and to access lower cost private capital, to work with communities on delivering projects, alongside initiatives that directly fund community organisations. 📸 Hexham Community Led Housing #CLTs #CommunityOwnership #CommunityRegeneration

Housing developments of the future will need smarter ways to manage rainwater and wastewater, to increase resilience to both flood and drought risk. Keen to know how community-led stewardship plays into this? Join tomorrow's FREE webinar: 'Community-led stewardship models for water smart communities', exploring findings from research into existing stewardship models and co-designing a stewardship model. Our Project Manager, Nichola Morris, will speak alongside representatives from Arup, CLES - Centre for Local Economic Strategies, CIWEM (The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management) and United Utilities. Register here: https://lnkd.in/e68gC-XE

Really fantastic (paid!) part time job opportunity at Bristol Community Land Trust still open for applications! Anyone: - highly organised - skilled at growing relationships - looking to join a team making a real impact on our housing crisis, growing community wealth and community power can find out more below ↓↓↓↓

New report now live! This important new report "Community Led Housing For All" details how community-led could help tackle racial inequalities in housing AND how we can address barriers to CLTs and other CLH for Black and minority ethnic communities. Key findings: - Community led housing is a way for communities experiencing racial inequality to influence planning and development processes - Awareness of community led housing with communities experiencing racial inequality is low, leading to under-representation in leadership roles - The sector needs to improve data collection to provide a quantitative understanding of representation - The potential for proactive engagement and more inclusive decision-making to ensure funding and delivery models are shaped by lived experience - The potential and benefits of greater peer-to-peer support - The need for long-term funding for the sector Read the report here: https://lnkd.in/d6TiPRNc As co-funders alongside Nationwide Foundation, Power to Change and The Tudor Trust, we're incredibly grateful to researchers Claude Hendrickson MBE, Henri Baptiste, Tom Moore, and Yael Arbell, as well as all of the interviewees who shared their experiences to help shape this report and its recommendations. Their work and contributions offers key guidance as we all take our next steps to making community-led housing a more inclusive sector and a better route to housing equality.

This new report just launched by New Local is a must read. It dives into a vision for a new and better system of development in England which integrates community autonomy into decision making - featuring Community Land Trusts as one community ownership model that should be used as a key element of a community driven approach to regeneration. We were delighted to see East Marsh United and Hastings Commons (among others) spotlighted as examples of community led regenerations projects - both projects that put on display how communities can lead the way in bringing our declining high streets back to life. #CLTs #CommunityLedHousing #CommunityDevelopment #CommunityLandTrusts #Placemaking

This is going to be a really great session with our partners Wrigleys Solicitors for anyone looking into community ownership of land for nature recovery. Our CEO Tom Chance will be speaking alongside Middle Marches Community Land Trust, one of the best examples of a Community Land Trust protecting nature and biodiversity in England. Register to join the FREE webinar here: https://lnkd.in/emPF2qay

New research by The Housing Forum suggests that the cost of building homes is higher than house prices in 1 in 5 areas, and that's only partially accounting for 'abnormal' costs like brownfield remediation and remote rural locations. I contributed some data on the latter with input from Steve Watson and Karl Hine, also drawing on our Community Land Trust Network research on higher planning costs for small schemes. So much of the discourse around planning & housebuilding is based on high value areas in London and the South East. Even there, viability can be a challenge on small/brownfield/rural schemes. But across much of the country there simply isn't much value left in the land once you deduct the costs of planning and building a home. In around 60 local authority areas it's uneconomic to build homes even on free land. Recent inflation has obviously made this much worse. Homes England's grants policy also needs to reflect these realities, otherwise grants will be skewed towards the most viable markets leaving rural areas in particular short of affordable housing. Read the full paper: https://lnkd.in/eE7kemBf cc Charles Dugdale Anna Clarke Tom Archer Gary Hartin Rose Grayston Jo Lavis Martin Collett

A well crafted Community Right to Buy could enable communities to revitalise and take control of Asssets of Community Value to develop sustainable and thriving places. But there are several key considerations to make sure that this would truly benefit CLTs.* In this article for Power to Change, our CEO, Tom Chance, dives into what needs to be considered around the valuation of Assets of Community Value to make sure communities and owners get a fair price. Dive in here: https://lnkd.in/ehB4cidt *See Tom's proposals as well as risks and examples from CLTs here: https://lnkd.in/eje3pTnB