By providing end-to-end technical support, we aim to achieve the following benefits for community groups:
- The engagement of communities at grassroots level through public meetings.
- The opportunity for anyone deeply-invested in a community to be involved in leading a community-led housing project; irrespective of skills, experience, socio-economic background, political affiliation etc.
- The mobilisation of the community as a driving force for change through the incorporation of a new community led housing (CLH) organisation.
- The opportunity for a new CLH organisation to define its ‘community of benefit’ within tight and intuitive boundaries; thus ensuring that 100% of participants’ time and energy is invested in ‘their place’.
- The CLH -led exploration of potential sites, counting ‘community support’ as just as important a criterion for selection as, say, planning policy and technical feasibility.
- The CLH-led engagement of landowners in the ethos of community benefit.
- CLH-led decisions about the number, type, tenure, and allocation criteria for new affordable homes.
- CLH-led project teams (including architects, engineers and other professionals) producing layouts and designs to the community’s brief.
- The CLH-led advocacy of a project to the wider community, often with over 90% support for a recommended site/property at public meetings.
- Engagement with existing public, private and third sector organisations on the community’s terms; particularly important in establishing the credibility of a CLH organisation as a grassroots entity in negotiations with local authorities over allocation and planning policies.
- The attraction of funding and support to communities often by-passed by the affordable housing sector.
- The bringing into productive use of sites/properties that might otherwise be undeveloped due to landowners being encouraged to come forward with sites that might otherwise have been withheld, planning consent being granted on sites that might otherwise have been refused, and the attraction of funding to projects that might otherwise have been deemed too costly.
- The overcoming of challenging planning, technical, landscape and funding constraints to deliver affordable housing in perpetuity for the benefit of the community.
- The generation of an income to ensure that a new CLH organisation is financially sustainable.
- The creation of a robust and knowledgeable local development vehicle though timely advice on governance and on the technicalities of asset ownership.
- The building of capacity and confidence as a platform for the development of other community assets and further housing projects.
- The creation of community resilience through the development of bonding and bridging networks.[1]
- [1] https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/difference-bonding-bridging-social-capital/