Wickham Community Land Trust – Local people, Local solutions, Local control

Hampshire is an expensive place to live with many people unable to afford suitable housing. Those on modest incomes often have no choice but to move out of their community away from family, friends, and valuable support networks in search of an affordable home. Some end up moving back with their parents, living in house shares, or spending a lot of money renting privately.

This issue is more prevalent in rural areas. Recent research carried out by Hamptons found that rural house prices had risen on average by 14.2% in the twelve months between June 2020 and June 2021 compared to 6.8% in rural areas.

 

Local people, local solutions, local control

In many parts of the country local people are coming up with their own solutions, which in turn has led to several schemes being built that help local people on modest incomes access a suitable, secure, and affordable home. An example of this being Wickham Community Land Trust in Winchester, Hampshire.

The Wickham Community Land Trust was formed as a result of a local church project seeking to find solutions to the challenges faced by local people accessing affordable housing in the parish. The group found that parents were reporting that their adult children were unable to afford the rapidly increasing local market rents and it was very difficult for them to qualify for social housing as most homes in the area had been sold through the Right to Buy. The local knowledge gained from this grass roots delivery was crucial in being able to identify those with important skills that would be able to join the group. When newly established, Wickham CLT was made up of Wickham parishioners with experience in Law, Business, Accountancy, Administration, Social Housing, Regeneration and council work at local authority and parish level.

The Community Land Trust engaged solicitors to incorporate into a Company Limited by Guarantee in 2008. Although it traces its origins from a church initiative, Wickham CLT is a fully independent organisation and allocations to any properties will, by legal provision of the Trust’s rules, not be controlled or influenced in any way by the support the church gave the project. The CLT also achieved charitable status in 2010.

So, what is a Community Land Trust?

A Community Land Trust (or CLT for short) is a not-for-profit organisation set up by members of the community, run by members of the community and all activities undertaken are for the benefit of the community. The community usually owns the freehold of the land and sometimes develops the land and property. The emphasis is always on providing affordable or specialist homes for local people which will remain affordable for local people in perpetuity. Membership of the CLT is open to anyone in the community who supports its aims (usually through shares of £1 each). CLTs can be set up in urban and rural areas.

There are many advantages in setting up a CLT:

• The CLT is not just a consultee – members of the CLT (who are volunteers from the community) are actively involved in the entire process of developing affordable housing (from start to finish).
• The CLT is involved in site identification, choosing the design of the homes and in the allocation of properties.
• CLTs usually own the freehold of the land so can make sure that tenants can never exercise the Right to Buy, ensuring that the homes remain affordable for local people in perpetuity.
• The ‘community area’ can be defined by the CLT. It can for example be a school catchment area, a village, or several villages together.
• Emphasis is always on affordable housing but there is an opportunity for the CLT to be involved in non-housing related projects in the future like community allotments or saving the village shop/pub.

 

CLTs take many forms and can be a flexible approach to providing much needed housing. Community groups can choose between a stand-alone CLT or a CLT that partners with a housing association.

• A Stand Alone CLT takes on all the risk, responsibility, and management itself so more volunteer time is required. The benefit however is that the CLT group has lots of control over the development receives a full income from the properties.
• A CLT that partners with a Housing Association takes on less risk and responsibility so cannot benefit from the full income of the properties. It has less control but can still be involved in site identification, scheme design and allocations.

Wickham CLT is something of a ‘hard core’ Community Land Trust in that from the outset trustees wanted to keep control of the Trust’s work and nomination of homes rather than hand day to day running over to a housing association.

 

Timeline

 

1. We conducted a housing need survey for the group during this time which identified local demand for 25-30 affordable homes. Face to face interviews followed to gain more understanding of the nature of people’s housing need.
2. A call for sites in the parish magazine led to the CLT group identifying a landowner interested in selling land for the project and a formal offer was then accepted to sell this farmland to the Trust. Due to viability issues, it was decided that the Trust would share the site with a housing association (Hyde Housing Group). The CLT also registered as a housing association with Homes England to ensure the homes were genuinely affordable for local people.
3. The group was able to receive pre-development finance for the project from Venturesome and started work on their Business Plan and estimated costings.
4. Wickham CLT received grant funding from Homes England, the Parity Trust, Charity Bank, the Charities Aid Foundation as well as private loans from the community and patient loans from Winchester District and Hyde Housing Group.
5. The local Planning Department focussed on seeking a combined site for community housing with a new doctors’ surgery alongside, and adjacent to, the existing Community Centre.
6. The agreement with Hyde Housing Group was to develop 16-20 affordable homes, allocated between the CLT and Housing Association.

 

Some of the homes built by Wickham CLT and Hyde Housing Group

Wickham Community Centre (existing building)

Wickham Surgery

 

• It was central to the CLT’s aims that it would manage its own application and allocations processes.
• An allocations policy was set up by the CLT (agreed by Winchester District).
• Wickham CLT also received help from us to draw up its own application form to allocate the properties, describing our input as ‘invaluable’.
• Planning permission for the scheme was granted in 2011.
• We then carried out a second housing need survey for the Trust (in 2012) which advised the CLT on how to pitch its rents and shared ownership prices.
• The Trust successfully purchased 8 freehold properties on the scheme from Hyde Housing Group in August 2012 (4 for affordable rent and 4 for shared ownership). It received over 20 applications for these 8 homes and a supportive local estate agent agreed to advertise the shared ownership homes for nothing.
• Wickham CLT appointed a Managing Agent to deal with its rental tenancies, collecting rent and service charges and handling inspections and handovers between tenancies. This was worthwhile as it meant that the Trust had access to an out of hours repairs service as well as a range of local trades people.
• The directors of Wickham CLT manage the relations between the 4 shared ownership properties, including the rental element of the lease and any home issues.

 

Feedback from residents about how the Trust manages relations between the four shared ownership properties remains positive with a resident stating in 2017:

“I really feel like the WCLT looks after us, they have helped us out of a crisis and continue to offer support as the years go by.”

 

Further projects

Wickham CLT recently purchased ten additional homes on another site in Wickham. These homes will be made available to rent at affordable rates this year (2022) to people with strong local connections to Wickham and surrounding parishes. Crucially, as with the first scheme these homes are to be retained as assets for the Wickham community in perpetuity with an exception from the Right to Buy. These homes are a mixture of one-bedroom flats and two- and three-bedroom houses. The Trust was able to make this second scheme happen as the result of a generous donation from a local parishioner, the late Dick Warwick whose family donated in his legacy. The Trust also received financial support from Winchester City Council, the South Downs National Park Authority and Triodos bank, the ethical bank committed to support community-led projects.

 

Are you interested in finding out more about setting up a Community Land Trusts to deliver much needed affordable homes in your community?

If so, please do get in touch with us today as we at the Hampshire Homes Hub are here providing a range of services to those wishing to deliver affordable homes for local people. We may even be able to arrange a visit to Wickham CLT so you can find out first-hand how the community successfully built much needed affordable homes in their area. Please also take a look at our ‘Community Led Housing Brochure’ for further information on CLTs and other community led housing models.