Bridge Farm (Drayton) CoHousing Ltd was established three years ago (late 2019) and propose to create twelve homes with shared facilities, known as a ‘Common House’, for a community of up to 25 people on a redundant farm complex. They intend to peg two thirds of the dwellings at no more than 80% of market value to ensure better affordability for residents/members and a real mix of people from different backgrounds.
In late 2021, grant funding was provided by South Somerset District Council from within its allocation of ‘Community Housing Fund’ (previously awarded to it by central Government) for the feasibility study. The primary purpose of such grants is to ‘de-risk’ the project by undertaking initial feasibility work prior to a planning application and the cohousers used the money to appoint various surveyors and other experts, including (after a competitive process in February 2022) their architects, Barefoot.
In the UK CoHousing communities are still small in number and usually small in scale. Of the three main types of Community Led Housing (the others being Community Land Trust and Co-Operative) they are the least in terms of completed schemes and probably the least understood.
Cohousing has been defined as “… intentional communities run by their residents. Each household has a self-contained home as well as shared community space and facilities. Cohousing can be a great way to live balancing privacy and highly sociable neighbourhood life. Originating in Denmark in the 1960s the movement has grown across Scandinavia, Germany and the United States. Cohousing is attracting a lot of interest across the country….” (UK Cohousing Network)
Members of the cohousing group at a community consultation event
The nearest other cohousing community is in Bridport, Dorset, a much larger scheme which is primarily new build and has been developed using the Community Land Trust /Community Benefit Society legal model in partnership with an established Housing Association (Bournemouth Churches).
Bridge Farm Cohousing have determined to ensure that construction of the common house is an early phase of the development so they have decided to convert the existing farmhouse, building a modest extension to create a room large enough for the whole community to gather and setting aside some of the upstairs rooms as guest bedrooms to reduce the need for ‘spare rooms’ in their individual homes. Early completion of the Common House, the least amount of repurposing on the whole site, will also make it more possible for some members to move into temporary accommodation, such as caravans or trailers, on site prior to the completion of their own homes, should they need to.
The detailed heritage report states “Traditional and historic farmsteads are a valuable aspect of the countryside, not only do they represent character and identity, they provide a valuable sense of space and a reminder of the past. They tell the history of the social and economic life in the countryside, demonstrating the use of local resources and skills, which contribute to differing regional vernacular variations in design, style and purpose.”
The farm is currently owned by four brothers who are sympathetic to the aims and objectives of the cohousing group and want to see stewardship of the land pass on to others with high ecological values. The planning application is a ‘hybrid’ seeking full permission for the repurposing of the main farm building complex into the residential scheme at the same time as outline permission for some other outbuildings to be repurposed for workshops and offices at some point in the future, creating a live/work community.
The site is within the catchment of the Somerset Levels and Moors (SLaM) Special Protection Area (SPA) and Ramsar site (internationally recognised wetland), one of 27 areas in England and Wales where excessive nutrients entering into the environment through water courses have been identified as posing a threat to a highly sensitive ecological landscape. In this case it is the River Parrett which flows right past the site, then into the Somerset Levels on its way to the Bristol Channel.
For Bridge Farm there is a solution that can be achieved on site, meeting both the planning requirements and the high ecology values of the collective itself. It involves replacing the existing septic tank (which services the original farmhouse) with a package treatment plant and planting 170 trees, in a mixed crop orchard on the adjacent field, which shall absorb the residual phosphates.
There are only a few rural cohousing communities in England repurposing old farm buildings, the nearest to Bridge Farm possibly being the Threshold Centre in Dorset and Trelay in North Cornwall. Another example of cohousers repurposing a redundant farm complex is the scheme in Cumbria which Colin heard about in his conversation with Laura Moss in episode seven of our podcast series, which you can find here.
In episode twelve of our Podcast series Colin is in conversation with Jeremy Holton from the Parracombe Community Trust in north Devon. The Trust has opened a new village shop and cafe and has also taken over running the village hall, previously a lodge house for the RAOB. There are also plans to build six sustainable affordable homes within the boundary of Exmoor National Park. Jeremy also adds his thoughts to the growing list of things that our contributors would tackle if made Housing Minister for a day.
In an extended episode published during Rural Housing Week (4-8 July 2022), we explore all things rural housing! Normally in each podcast Colin is in conversation with somebody who has been part of a particular community led housing scheme, but this time you can hear from a number of people including a few words from two different Community Land Trusts and two different Housing Associations. Jonathan Layzell, now Executive Director of Development at Stonewater, and Karl Hine, Head of Community Housing at Aster, both talk about the ways in which Housing Associations can engage with Parish Councils and Community Land Trusts, having both once worked as a Rural Housing Enabler in Somerset.
We also hear from Sue Southwell who now works at Somerset West & Taunton District Council but previously spent fourteen years as a Rural Housing Enabler in Devon. Colin also includes a look back at some of the things Elizabeth Maunder (Norton sub Hamdon Community Land Trust) said in the very first episode of the podcast series and a look forward to some of the things Jeremy Holtham (Parracombe Community Trust) will be saying in next month’s episode. If you want to know how your village can do something about housing local people, this podcast is a good place to start.
Finland is an unusual place where people consistently consider themselves to be the happiest in the world, where the ruling coalition is led by a group of five women, four of whom are under 40, and where public spending as a % of GDP is among the highest in Europe. For more about Finland’s unusual culture and how it came about, Danny Dorling’s Finntopia: What We Can Learn From the World’s Happiest Country is a must read.
In June 2022, we attended the European Social Housing Festival in Helsinki. One of the four days of the festival was dedicated to Collaborative Housing – Community Led Housing, as we know it – and we were presenting on our experience of partnerships between CLTs and RPs in a session with colleagues from Italy, Spain, Belgium and Ireland. But before and after the collaborative housing day, visits had been arranged to three community-led housing projects in the city. These visits will probably stay with us the longest of the many memories of Finland.
The visits were led by the extraordinary Salla Korpela. Salla is joint owner, with Susanne Vatanen, of Sagarak Oy, a technical support service for those wanting to live in cohousing projects. Literally translated, Sagarak Oy means Wise Women Building Ltd. It’s wisdom about human nature that drives Salla and Susanne’s work, as we found after the wonderful dinner laid on for about 100 of us after the last visit. Salla stood on a chair and gave this unscripted speech:
Salla Korpela: Speech to collaborative housing delegates, Malta House, Helsinki.
Photo: Steve Watson, Director, Middlemarch CLH CIC
“I believe that spending an evening like this together, having dinner, telling stories, and sharing their lives and experiences is what I believe our brains are wired for because it is so deeply, deeply ingrained. This is what I believe. And also, I believe that the world is complicated and we have many challenges but we when live like this we remain strong; strong to face all kinds of challenges in the world such as climate change and any kind of social catastrophes. This is the way to do it. Modern development and urbanisation have the tendency to draw us apart from each other, but we have the means to bring ourselves together by joining like this, having dinner together, solving our problems together, and facing the challenge of life together. I am a woman of faith but not any religious dogma. My faith is in sharing – to bring a little bit of heaven on earth, and that this is the movement we all need to take further.”
This spirit of community is what the three cohousing projects were all about: Kotisatama, Sumppi and Malta House. All were completed within the last 10 years and range from 39 to 63 flats. They are for older people, although the minimum age is just 48. All have been built on land leased for 80 years from the City of Helsinki authority (which owns huge tracts of land). Each project is owned by a company in which the residents buy shares equivalent to the market value of their homes, less the land value which is retained by the City.
The initial residents were closely involved in the design of their projects – facilitated by Sagarak Oy – and the projects are run on cohousing principles. In the largest project, flats range in size from 37 to over 70m2 and there is 500m2 of common space, including the inevitable sauna (although some of the individual flats have saunas too).
Kotisatama cohousing project residents, Helsinki.
Photo: Pierre Arnold, Associated World Habitat Award project manager at urbaMonde, France
Cleaning and cooking is almost all done by residents, organised democratically into 6 groups which each leads on a different aspect of life in the project. The level of organisation seems to have become more relaxed over time. One project started out with 3 communal meals a week and now has one every now and then, as the feeling in the house dictates. Opinions differ about rules: some like more, some like fewer. The general sense, though, going back to Salla’s wisdom, is that they overcome loneliness, reduce dependency on social care and contribute to the sense of well being in Finland.
Steve Watson and Dr Helen Lawson, Middlemarch CLH CIC
The latest episode of the Middlemarch podcast is now available. This time Colin is in conversation with Jacqui Wilding who is Chair of the Bronllys Well Being Park Community Land Trust, based in Powys, Wales. The CLT has very ambitious plans for the site, currently owned by the NHS, of a community hospital. Building on work undertaken by the Prince’s Foundation, they’ve developed feasibility studies for a range of community facilities, not just housing, and gained support from the wider community. “… it’s wonderful to see this initiative beginning to emerge at Bronllys….” said actor Michael Sheen in an endorsement he recorded for the launch of their plan “The Next Ten Years”. Read More …
In the ninth episode of the series, just released, Colin is in conversation with Claude Hendrickson who works as a Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Adviser at Leeds Community Homes. Download the podcast to hear Claude talk about his experiences as project manager of the Frontline Community Self Build project where, during the 1990’s, a dozen young black men from Chapeltown in north east Leeds built their own homes on a former quarry site offered to them by the City Council. Claude was praised by the MP Richard Bacon in his review of Self and Custom Build and he also talks to Colin about diversity within the community led housing sector. If you’ve missed any previous episodes you can also find these on the podcast page of our website.
The Community Housing Fund, Broadwindsor Group Parish CLT and Abri start on site, Bridport Cohousing nears completion, podcasts on Spotify and Apple etc etc. Read more here.
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.
“We will support community housing” said the Conservative Party manifesto back in 2019 and since being returned to office the Government has supported community (led) housing in a variety of ways, but for most of England, outside London, the Community Housing Fund (CHF) closed just a year later, in December 2020.
The CHF was first announced in the Spring 2016 budget by the then chancellor. On 16th March 2016 the Rt Hon George Osborne told the House of Commons “We’re going to … support community housing trusts, including £20 million to help young families onto the housing ladder in the South West of England”
In 2016-17, £60m was distributed to 148 councils to support community led housing, largely based on the recorded prevalence of second homes, so most of the housing authorities (mostly District Councils) in the South West benefited, but not all of them. For some, perhaps most, local housing authorities it came as a bit of a shock, since they didn’t need to bid for it, with the first tranche of actual cash being paid over just before Christmas with the expectation that it would be deployed before the end of the financial year! Most rose to the challenge and swiftly put plans into place.
Following this, the community led housing sector worked with the relevant Government Department (then called the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government or MHCLG) to establish a more structured programme which launched in the summer of 2018. This iteration of the CHF was a huge success. It increased the potential pipeline of homes from 5,810 to over 23,000. It also developed the network of some 25 community led housing hubs covering most of England, the hub for Dorset and Somerset now being hosted by Middlemarch. Over 120 advisers completed accredited training (recognised by the Chartered Institute of Housing), including all of us at Middlemarch.
Over half the local authorities in England now have either policies or dedicated officers (in some cases both!) to support community led housing. While the fund remains open in London (until the end of March 2023), it closed for the rest of England after only 18 months.
However, a further £4m was made available for groups with advanced projects in 2021-22, but with only five months for them to bid and take up any award of grant the scope of that round of funding was inevitably narrower than previously had been the case.
We all expected a revived fund to be announced in the autumn budget last year. All the signs were there. The Government had continued to pledge support for community led housing schemes and acknowledged the added value demonstrated.
“Housing built by community-led groups, including community land trusts and housing co-operatives, can deliver high quality affordable housing that cannot be delivered by the mainstream market. We have supported community-led housebuilding through the Community Housing Fund and we will consider how best to maintain that support going forward.” They said in The Charter for Social Housing Residents, published last year.
The autumn budget came … and went! “… we will always give people the support they need and the tools to build a better life for themselves.” Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons, although he didn’t directly translate that into any specific funding for communities to address their own housing issues. However, he did pledge to “…meet our commitment to invest £10bn in new housing… and unlock 1 million new homes…”
But what about the newly renamed Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) lead by the Rt Hon Michael Gove as Secretary of State? The Kruger report on Levelling Up Our Communities (commissioned by the Prime Minister) recommended that community led housing “should be recognised as the future of social housing, both in rural and urban areas, and more enthusiastically backed by government.”
Although the Chancellor hadn’t set aside specific funding to revitalise the CHF, couldn’t the Secretary of State set aside such a fund from within his overall DLUHC settlement?
We thought he could. So last November we wrote to every MP where we’ve supported a successful community led housing scheme or where we’re currently supporting a prospective group (in some cases both!) in their constituency. Wherever possible we cited the schemes or potential projects on their patch. Just for good measure we also wrote to all the other MPs with a constituency in Devon, Dorset or Somerset (the three counties we tend to work in most), even if we’re not currently helping any prospective schemes and haven’t in the past. A full list of all these MPs is in the table below.
Tobias Ellwood
Bournemouth East
Conor Burns
Bournemouth West
Ian Liddell-Grainger
Bridgwater & West Somerset
Mel Stride
Central Devon
Sir Christopher Chope
Christchurch
Simon Jupp
East Devon
Ben Bradshaw*
Exeter
Michael Tomlinson
Mid Dorset & North Poole
Anne Marie Morris
Newton Abbot
Selaine Saxby
North Devon
Simon Hoare
North Dorset
Dr Liam Fox
North Somerset
Sir Robert Syms
Poole
John Glen
Salisbury
David Warburton
Somerton & Frome
Richard Drax
South Dorset
Sir Gary Streeter
South West Devon
Sir Geoffrey Clifton Browne
The Cotswolds
Rebecca Pow
Taunton Deane
Luke Hall
Thornbury & Yate
Neil Parish
Tiverton & Honiton
Kevin Foster
Torbay
Sir Geoffrey Cox
Torridge & West Devon
Anthony Mangnall
Totnes
James Heappey
Wells
Chris Loder
West Dorset
Marcus Fysh
Yeovil
*NB Ben Bradshaw is the only Labour MP listed, all the others are Conservative
We pointed out all the advantages of community led housing schemes and why fledgling groups are at a disadvantage compared with other developers: “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.” we told them.
We also quoted the Kruger report and the Charter for Social Housing Residents as well as the Bacon Review of Self and Custom Build (which recommended that “the Government should reignite the successful Community Housing Fund”) and The Building Better Building Beautiful Commission (which noted in its final report that community led housing groups are “excellent at delivering places that people like and value” and recommended that “the government should continue to support community-led development [including] ongoing funding support for community housing projects, with a sensible long-term commitment, such as for the next five years”).
We asked MPs if they would support the renewal of the CHF and, if so, would they be willing to raise this with the Secretary of State.
Most MPs sent a short, polite but generic acknowledgement. This is no surprise as almost all MPs must get a lot of correspondence and will, quite rightly, want to prioritise urgent casework for individual constituents. Most of them publish their views on certain issues on their website and often direct correspondents there if they think it’s a templated letter as part of a coordinated lobbying campaign that doesn’t merit an individual response. They also, understandably, feel obliged to point correspondents to their own MP when you’re not actually their constituent which, in most cases, of course we aren’t!
So in January we contacted over 50 CLTs to ask if they would be willing to write to their own MP in the hope that direct contact from a group within their constituency might get a more direct response. Across the region, from Appledore to Stow-on-the-Wold, CLTs responded and made contact with their MP, often referring to our earlier contact and often referring to their own schemes and how these could benefit from a renewed CHF (or could have!). In the second table we’ve listed all the CLTs and fledgling groups that we contacted.
Appledore
Lyme Regis
Boscombe and Pokesdown
Lyn
Bradford Abbas
Marshwood
Bradworthy
Newton & Noss
Braunton
Norton sub Hamdon
Broad Chalke
Parracombe
Broadhembury
Portland
Broadwindsor
Powerstock
Burton Bradstock
Queen Camel
Chagford
Salcombe
Charlton Horethorne
Sampford Peverell
Chawleigh
Seavington
Cheriton Bishop
Sixpenny Handley
Christow
South Petherton
Colyton and Colyford
Spaxton
Corfe Castle
Stow on the Wold
Corry Valley
Sturminster Newton
Creekmoor
Symene (Symondsbury)
Dorchester
Toller Porcorum
Fontmell Magna
Upper Coly Valley
Frome (Faculty)
Upper Culm (Hemyock)
Georgeham Parish
Upton Pyne
Gillingham
West Somerset
Gittisham
Weymouth
Hartland Parish
Wilmington
High Ham
Woolacombe
Langton Matravers
Yarcombe
To be clear, if your local group is working in partnership with a Housing Association (or if your CLT is one of the few that has become a ‘Registered Provider’ in it’s own right), your proposed scheme can seek subsidy from the Government (through the grants programme administered by Homes England) or, sometimes, from your local housing authority (for example if they need to spend money collected from developers as ‘section 106 contributions’). The CHF doesn’t replace this form of subsidy – but what it does do is help groups get their project to the stage where it is possible to bid for capital subsidy.
There’s been an enthusiastic and very helpful response from some MPs, especially those who have already shown support for a scheme in their constituency. In some cases this came immediately after we contacted them in November, in other cases it came after their local CLT had made contact, but in all cases it is very welcome. At the time of writing we know of five MPs (almost 19%!) who have said that they will contact either the Secretary of State or the Housing Minister.
In the meantime the sector nationally has put together the ‘ask’.
In January the Community Land Trust Network issued a briefing which stated “Based on research by Dr Tom Archer and Catherine Harrington there are an estimated 12,000 homes in the pipeline from over 630 groups. They will need £45 million of pre-development revenue funding and £2.5bn of capital to complete these homes.” It went on to seek £65million over four years,
“We are calling on the Government to renew the Community Housing Fund with:
£45 million of revenue grant funding for projects.
£8m of revenue grant funding to complete the enabler hubs network.
£7.5m of capital grant funding for innovative affordable housing tenures “
One of the key points is the stop/go nature of the CHF. As we all know schemes take years to work through from conception to completion and the sector as a whole needs the surety of knowing that such a fund might be available at the time it is needed. Many of the successful schemes in the West Country have been fortunate to have been at the right stage at the right time. The Affordable Homes we see being delivered for local people this year will have had the right funding available at some point in the past, so renewal of the CHF is about making sure that local communities are in a position to create new homes in future years.
Of course some local housing authorities (but by no means all, in fact not even a majority) are able to help with some early stages funding where they still have such funds allocated within their own budgets. A renewed CHF would level the field and mean the chances of your fledgling group getting financial support when it most needs it won’t be dependant on whether your local council has an enlightened approach and the funding to back it up.
On the 23rd March this year Rishi Sunak is due to deliver his ‘Spring Statement’ to Parliament. Given the current economic backdrop, some commentators are thinking it could effectively be a fully blown budget. Whether it’s a new budget or just the ‘usual’ seasonal update, let’s hope there’s a revised funding stream for community led housing somewhere in the detail, even if he omits to actually announce it in the House. If not the ability to get community led housing schemes ‘shovel ready’ may rest in the hands of Michael Gove and his willingness to set aside funds from within the DLUHC settlement.
