It’s rare to watch the news or read a newspaper without seeing something about the UK’s housing crisis and the need to build more homes. There just aren’t enough affordable homes to go around and it is something that impacts upon all of us. We probably all know someone who has had to move because their landlord has decided to sell up, reluctantly leave an area to find a home they can afford or who can’t return to the town or village they grew up because they can’t find a home there. Maybe this is a situation you have had to face yourself.
We all need a decent affordable place to call home, and we need those homes to be in the right places for the people that genuinely need them. This ethos is at the heart of the community-led housing sector in Wales. Communities Creating Homes, the Wales hub for the community-led housing sector delivered by Cwmpas, works with communities to achieve just that.
An all-too-common challenge
Gŵyr CLT are one of over 50 groups we are working with to try and redress the balance of affordable housing supply. Gŵyr CLT was formed in late 2020 by local people who are fed up with the precarious private rented sector and long waiting lists for social housing. They recognised they were not the only ones unable to afford secure and suitable housing where they live and work.
Working with Cwmpas, they developed a concept to provide a route into home ownership that would otherwise be out of reach. They have been awarded nearly £900,000 by Welsh Government’s Land and Buildings Development Fund towards this first of a kind, community-led and built project.
The funding has contributed towards planning applications on a site in the village of Bishopston to build 14 shared-ownership homes for local people on a third of the 6-acre site. The remaining acreage will improve the existing public right of way and create green amenity space for the whole of the surrounding community.
Unfortunately, their initial planning application was refused by the local planning authority with the decision being made by an officer panel and not facing the committee scrutiny that a groundbreaking proposal like this deserves. Their next step is to appeal.
Championing community-led housing development
Situations such as the one faced by Gŵyr CLT highlight the challenges that community-led housing organisations often face—particularly when it comes to convincing planners that people in affordable housing can collaborate successfully to meet both their housing needs and the needs of others.
Despite this scepticism, there’s actually a strong foundation in Welsh planning policy that supports community-led development. Challenging situations like this provide us with an opportunity to dispel persistent myths and show just how powerful community-led housing can be:
- Planning Policy Wales, the Welsh framework against which all planning decisions are assessed, gives community-led housing organisations the same status as housing associations and local authorities as affordable housing providers.
- Community-led housing organisations are legally constituted non-profit entities. In fact, many CLTs are Community Benefit Societies or Community Interest Companies which are also common legal forms of housing associations.
- The legal form of community-led housing organisations enables them to access grants, enter contracts and become landlords.
- Community-led housing groups comply with the allocation policies of the local planning authority in which they are located and do not operate outside of this contrary to affordable housing policies.
Cwmpas is continuing to work with Welsh Government and local planning authorities to champion community-led housing as a vital part of the solution to the housing crisis. A big part of our role is supporting groups like Gŵyr CLT to navigate challenges and find the best possible path forward—so they can focus on building the homes and communities they envision.
You can find out more about Gŵyr CLT’s proposed development here.
