Housing is a significant driver of poverty, prosperity and inequality in the UK. More people are living in insecure and unsuitable rented accommodation, and for an entire generation of younger people stuck in the rental trap, homeownership is out of reach. Given the disproportionate increase in housing prices (4.5x since 1997) compared to wages (2x since 1997), it’s of little wonder that 3% of the UK population choose to own second homes as an investment strategy, further exacerbating the gap between those already on the housing ladder and those who are not. Long term renters are evicted in favour of more profitable AirBnBs, and locals are priced out of scenic towns where up to half of all homes are bought up as holiday lets. Over a million homes sit empty in the UK, while the waiting list for social housing is now at 1.2 million households.

Our present housing crisis has been in full swing since the Great Recession of 2007-8, which marks a significant cut-off moment for home ownership for many people. But the systemic and policy causes (Right to Buy, Buy to Let, Help to Buy) of this crisis have been in effect for decades, and lurching between (under)investment in social housing or inflating the private sector to capture swing voters has created a huge shortfall in the homes needed and a perversely incentivised market.

Community Led Housing neighbourhoods are created and run by their residents, and provide a third way forward that is more insulated from policy shifts. They are neither government-owned social housing, or on the private property market. Homes are built, bought and sold in consultation with residents, and at a price that is locked to average income. Demand is considerable: Citizens House, a recent cohousing development in London heartbreakingly describes how over 400 people expressed interest and 100 were interviewed for just 11 homes.

Images: Citizens House and LILAC

Three Areas of Work:

Policy, Practice and 2023 Summit

For the past nine months I have been supporting a coalition of organisations including the UK Cohousing Network, Confederation of Co-operative Housing, Community Land Trust Network, Nationwide Foundation and Laudes Foundation to shift our broken housing system towards more inclusive, sustainable and equitable models.  

1. Policy

Designing and facilitating a process of collaboration between major stakeholders in the sector to develop a policy green paper delivered to the Housing Minister and DLUHCs.

By creating the right tools, structure and a series of in-person and online workshops and a collaborative writing process, we were able to convene different stakeholder organisations, each with their own missions and vision, to create a unified voice and plan to significantly accelerate the growth of the sector by 2035.

The document handed to government provides a clear vision for developing community-led housing at scale:

• Residents have affordable, sustainable and safe homes in thriving communities they own and manage
• Housebuilders work with and for communities and the first occupants
• Local governments meet local housing needs designed and run by communities
• National government unlocks bottlenecks and transforms the culture of the housing system to community benefit 

It sets out three core elements to enable Community Led Housing to represent 5% of new housing supply by 2035, creating 15,000 community led homes per year:

Long-Term Finance: Community Led Housing Growth Fund
A foundational investment to enable communities to work with well-financed delivery intermediaries and take ownership of assets at the end of the development process.

Scaling Delivery: Community Led Housing Growth Lab
Growing the marketplace of intermediaries which work with communities, developers, housing associations and landowners to infuse the philosophy of community led housing into new developments.

Policies for Communities: Community Focused Policy Reforms
Government policy reforms that incentivise the community-led philosophy, partnerships with communities and better outcomes for communities.

“It was a great process, you really helped us to open our minds and sharpen up ideas.”
– Tom Chance, Chief Executive at Community Land Trust Network, FRSA

images: Tom Chance and Foundling Museum

2. Practice

Designing and facilitating a pilot Growth Lab programme to coach three diverse and dynamic cohousing organisations to realise their visions and evolve and grow their model.

I worked closely with the UK Cohousing Network and Community Land Trust Network to design a Growth Lab programme funded by the Laudes Foundation and based on the Design Council’s tried-and-tested double diamond model. This saw the teams applying different lenses to their offer, markets and users, conducting primary and secondary research using different methods, and developing their model and offer through open collaboration, ideation and prototyping. The programme ran just shy of nine months and brought together expert coaching, inspiring guest speakers, case studies and a series of workshops and structured live assignments that helped the teams to learn by doing.

The Growth Lab is a good example of ‘split screen’ working – focusing on the immediate contexts, journeys and impact of the teams, while also having one eye on the bigger picture: Understanding how scaling up the Growth Lab can identify and nurture the leadership, skills, products and services that will gain industry and government support, linking into the policy proposals above.

The Teams:

Middlemarch is a community interest group and social enterprise who provide guidance and technical support to community led housing organisations. They are based in the South West of England, where housing undersupply is acute and compounded by people who live elsewhere in the UK but buy up homes in areas such as Cornwall, Devon and Somerset to rent out as ‘holiday lets’. In their example town of Woolacombe, 47% of the houses are holiday lets, leaving no room for people who want to reaming living and working in the town.

WeCanMake are based in Bristol and apply an ‘urban acupuncture’ approach of ‘gentle densification’ – securing small and in-between plots of land (micro-sites) to develop more sustainable homes that build social infrastructure and community wealth. Their modular construction system and community workshop enables bespoke buildings to be developed for different site footprints while keeping costs down. Their site is a treasure trove of resources, knowledge and experience that they are keen to share in order to grow their model nationally to provide a projected 33,000 affordable homes.

Communities CAN are based in County Durham and are a hub of support services for community led housing in the North East. They bringing together experts and resources, supporting projects from the initial stages of forming a group and developing ideas and plans, through to development and management of the homes. They used the Growth Lab to focus on Stanley High Street to develop their offer for reclaiming vacant buildings and revitalising dilapidated high streets (of which there are sadly many in the region). They also took the opportunity to develop a viability and diagnostic tool to help accelerate the process in the early stages.

3. Summit 2023

Celebrating 20 years since the first cohousing project was built in the UK and the first UK Cohousing summit since before the pandemic. 

It was an honour to plan, design and facilitate the event alongside Owen Jarvis, CEO of the UK Cohousing Network, and to meet so many people and organisations on the day from across the UK and as far afield as Canada, the US and New Zealand. I helped Owen put together this article documenting the day which also organises a lot of resources and all of the presentations from architects, building societies, cohousing community members, government bodies and keynote speaker Chuck Durett, who first coined the term ‘Cohousing’ in the 1970s while working in Denmark, who are the world leaders in cohousing developments.

I hope that for some this article and the links it contains serve as a jumping-off point to discover more about the sector. The scale of the problem is vast, but the opportunity and rewards are too.