Author: Steve Watson

Community Housing Fund Delivery Review 2024

Community Housing Fund Delivery Review 2024

Posted on by Steve Watson

The Community Housing Fund Delivery Review 2024 outlines the progress and key insights regarding the Community Housing Fund (CHF), which was launched by the UK Government in 2016 to boost the supply of community-led housing (CLH).

Key Phases of the CHF:

  1. Initial Phase (2016-17): £60 million was allocated to councils facing affordability stress due to high levels of second homes.
  2. Main Phase (2018-20): £163 million was directed towards grants by Homes England and the Greater London Authority (GLA). However, most of this was not fully allocated.
  3. Later Phase (2021-22): £4 million of revenue grants were provided to more advanced projects.

Achievements:

  • Housing Supply: 4,222 homes are either delivered or in active projects, with 913 under construction or already built.
  • Affordable Housing: 90% of the pipeline is affordable housing, with 80% set at sub-market rents, likely to remain affordable long-term.
  • Project Success: Two-thirds of projects with substantial funding have homes completed, under construction, or with secured planning permission.

Other Findings:

  • Non-standard Tenures: There is a demand for tenures not supported by mainstream Affordable Housing Programmes (AHP), such as Mutual Home Ownership and Discount Market Sale.
  • Small Development Sizes: The median project size is 15 homes, showing CLH’s potential to use smaller sites unviable for mainstream developers.
  • Modern Methods of Construction (MMC): CLH projects are slightly more likely to use MMC (18%) compared to mainstream developments.
  • Self/Custom Build: 12% of projects offer custom builds, higher than the industry average (6-8%), especially for affordable housing.
  • Public Land: Almost half of the projects are on public land, suggesting CLH can maximize the social value of public land disposal.

Challenges and Areas for Improvement:

  • Undersubscribed Funding: Funding oversubscription limited the CHF’s reach, with £27 million of bids unmet during the 2018-20 period.
  • Geographic Distribution: 73% of funded projects are concentrated in Southern England, highlighting the need for more balanced regional support.
  • Dormant Projects: 15 projects, representing 5% of funding, were put on hold due to financial viability issues, landowner withdrawal, or local opposition.

Success Factors:

  • Enabler Support: CLH projects that worked with enabler hubs were more successful, with 80% of active projects receiving support.
  • Development Partnerships: Collaborations with housing associations and developers are common and crucial for success.

Conclusion:

The CHF has significantly increased housing supply, particularly affordable housing, and fostered innovation in the housing sector. However, underfunding, regional imbalance, and unmet demand for non-standard housing models remain challenges. Future funding could benefit from targeting projects with proven success factors, such as partnerships with experienced enablers and developers.

Our Winter 2024 Newsletter - a lot happening!

Our Winter 2024 Newsletter – a lot happening!

Posted on by Steve Watson
In this issue … https://mailchi.mp/7f32aa18a600/middlemarch-clh-cic-summer-newsletter-16928768
Marshfield in contract!
The first CLT-led new homes on Exmoor
Three planning applications in North Devon
Two planning consents for a South Devon CLT
Planning consent for a Wiltshire CLT
Planning consent for an East Devon CLT
Broadwindsor Group Parish CLT wins an award
Two new CLTs
Dorset grant scheme
The NPPF and news from the CLT Network
The Devon Housing Commission
Research complete
Middlemarch Podcast - Episode 13

Middlemarch Podcast – Episode 13

Posted on by Steve Watson

Appledore is a coastal village in North Devon, nestled on the side of the double estuary of the Taw and the Torridge and typical of the South West in having a high level of second homes and few opportunities for the younger generation to find somewhere to stay locally. In the latest edition of our podcast series, Colin hears about the CLT scheme that provided nine homes in Appledore from two different perspectives. He is in conversation with both Peter Reveley, Secretary of the Appledore Community Land Trust and Karl Hine, Head of Community Housing at the Aster Group who built the homes in partnership with the CLT. These conversations were originally prompted by research being undertaken for the Community Land Trust Network and both Peter and Karl are directly quoted in the State of The Community Land Trust Sector 2023 report (link:  State-of-the-Sector-2023-PRESS-1.pdf (communitylandtrusts.org.uk)) which was launched by the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, in Parliament this March. The report features Appledore as a case study (page 15), so you can read about it there or listen to a much fuller version in our podcast.

Listen to “The Middlemarch Podcast: In Conversation With…….” on Spreaker.

Will there be another round of the Community Housing Fund?

Posted on by Steve Watson

“Will there be another round of the Community Housing Fund?” we wrote at the start of an article on our website almost exactly a year ago. We suggested that Community Land Trusts might want to write to their MP to seek their support for the Community Housing Fund and ask them to write to the Minister to seek its renewal. Many of you did, often pointing to how the fund either helped your own project or could be used by others to help a project similar to your own. Some of you had some very positive responses from your MP and assurances that they would speak to the relevant Minister. Our article last spring stated:

“The Community Housing Fund has been a great boost to schemes up and down the country, but it has had something of a chequered history, and, at the time of writing, it has an uncertain future.”

Sadly, that’s still an accurate statement today. The very schemes that the Government would like the planning system to support or encourage won’t be able to come forward without some funding to help fledgling groups through the feasibility stage and to help ‘de-risk’ difficult sites. In a letter at the tail end of 2021 from Middlemarch to all MPs in Devon, Dorset and Somerset, we said:

 “At the early stages any newly formed group will find it difficult to meet the preliminary costs of securing a site and undertaking all the necessary assessments in order to seek planning permission. A Community Led group may have the enthusiasm and willingness to put in volunteer time ‘at risk’ but, unlike a Housing Association or a volume builder, it won’t have the reserves or other financial capacity to underwrite that commitment.”

Unfortunately, since that last article a year ago, there has been the greatest level of churn in Government in living memory – including Michael Gove being appointed, sacked and then re-appointed to his current role in the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Last month the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, had another reshuffle and we now have another new housing minister, Rachel Maclean, the MP for Redditch.

So, we feel the time is right to go back to our MPs. If you’ve written to yours and you had a positive response, then perhaps a short letter or email to remind them of their stated support and asking them to contact the new Housing Minister? If you previously didn’t have a positive response when you contacted your MP, why not try again?

There has been some good news since last year: the Government has recently demonstrated renewed support for community led housing development with some very positive signals in their proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in a consultation that ended at the start of this month.

When writing to your MP, by all means endorse the support the Government is showing through the proposed changes to the NPPF but point out that groups need practical support too. They need a new CHF.