The London Assembly Housing Committee has identified housing co-ops and community land trusts (CLTs) as “part of the solution” to London’s housing crisis, but warn they need more financial support and help accessing land.
In its report, Building Community Power: Expanding Cooperative Housing & Community Land Trusts in London, the committee highlights the impact of London’s housing co-ops and CLTs, and identifies a number of measures the Greater London Authority and others could take to further support them.
“Delivering community-led homes is not easy. Community groups need support, advice and resources in order to have a significant impact,” states the report.
“When this has been provided, community-led housing has flourished in London. The committee has considered how support for this approach can go further, with greater numbers of homes delivered by housing co-operatives and community land trusts, available for and controlled by the people who need them most.”
The report calls on both national and local government to provide more funding for housing co-ops in London, via the Community Housing Fund and Affordable Homes Programme, and to offer further revenue funding to Community Led Housing Hub London.
London’s Community Led Housing Hub welcomed the recommendations, saying: “Land is essential for groups pursuing development, although we know this a complex, risky, and lengthy path for communities to achieve control over their housing, and even more so for marginalised communities with limited time and resources.
“To see real growth in community led housing, we believe new approaches such as Collective Ownership are essential. We are working to establish the Collective Ownership Society as a scalable vehicle for long-term investment focusing on acquisitions to address the instability and disempowerment faced by private renters.”
The report also calls on London mayor Sadiq Khan to make more land available for housing co-ops and CLTs through his Small Sites Small Builders programme, and create more opportunities for co-ops to develop on land they own.
More housing co-ops and CLTs run by and for groups under-represented in the sector, such as Black and global majority Londoners, also need to be supported, says the report.
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The London Federation of Housing Cooperatives (LFHC), which gave evidence at a Housing Committee hearing last year, welcomed the recommendations.
“If implemented, the recommendations of the report can be a significant step forward in developing housing co-operatives, once again, in the capital,” it said.
LFCH has been running for almost 30 years, providing training and support for London’s housing co-ops as well as connecting them with one another and lobbying in support of tenant controlled housing.
“LFHC continues to raise that the national government should provide the necessary funding required to carry out these recommendations,” the federation added.
“We would also like to explore further with the Greater London Authority, the right to self-manage existing stock as housing cooperatives – in relation to the new London Affordable Housing Programme.”
