Solid Foundations with Lancaster City Council
14th July 2021
What a packed and inspiring day! At the request of Lancaster City Council, the Community Led Housing Hub for Cumbria & Lancaster brought together a one-day festival of four events, looking at different conversations around Community Led Housing on July 13th 2021. We reached more than 60 people on the day and heard from some of the most pioneering projects from across the country.
We explored how Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are providing affordable homes in Calder Valley and the Lune Valley, including an insight into community shares and the range of buildings community land Trusts can take on. The Lune Valley CLT are showing that passivhaus can be affordable, in partnership with local social housing provider South Lakes Housing. This is a brilliant push towards better practice all round, reducing the carbon impact of building new homes and relieving fuel poverty for all future residents.
You can watch the session here:
New Ground Older Womens’ Cohousing shared the practicalities of communal living as we age, and how this group has successfully built and nurtured a community of twenty-six women over the age of 50. In their community in Barnet, they have created a place which is safe and supportive to grow old in, which provides flexible independent living with the options for as much social interaction as residents choose.
You can watch the session here:
The newest of the projects we heard from is Marmalade Lane, in Cambridge, where the community worked with ‘enabling developer’ TOWN and the City Council to achieve a beautifully designed cohousing community. By design they prioritised space for people over space for cars; a common house, shared facilities and a community-facing layout to encourage incidental interactions all contributing to a successful fledgling community who have worked hard together to realise their vision within a planned major development.
You can watch the session here:
Finally, we heard from Giroscope in Hull and Homebaked CLT in Liverpool who both have incredible stories to tell about neighbourhood decline and renewal. These two projects are reclaiming derelict properties and bringing them back in to use as good housing and workspace for small businesses. This makes a huge difference to the local area, often also providing training, voluntary opportunities and a sense of community for people who have barriers to employment. Reclaiming empty property is absolutely a win-win here. It is fantastic work to hear about.
You can watch the session here:
Thank you to all the presenters, of course, and to the audience who were able to ask questions and take away a passion and enthusiasm for doing things the way they work best locally, rather than the way they have always been done.
We will be sharing all the presentations and recordings of the events in due course and hope that they will continue to inspire new and creative approaches to local housing action.