Wilton Community Land Trust Chair, Neil Prigent and WCLT Manager Zoe Cupit attended the first Community-Led Housing Conference in London. Zoe Cupit Manager said “the day was fantastic as it demonstrated the real energy and movement now behind the Land Trust’s in the UK. In particularly having the Minister attending in the morning showed the Government really backing community led housing “ A Press Release from the day –
Community-led housing activists and supporters heard from the Minister of State for Housing and Planning, Alok Sharma MP, that the Community Housing Fund, amounting to a further £240million, will be relaunched in January 2018 following its first successful year.
The Minister addressed a sell-out crowd of more than 500 delegates at the first-ever National Community-Led Housing Conference, hosted by the National Community Land Trust Network and UK Cohousing, on Monday 27 November.
The Minister’s full speech can be viewed here.
The National CLT Network and UK Cohousing, joined by CCH, led a 9 month campaign to get a decision on the Fund and Members of all organisations played an instrumental role, where more than 50 MPs contacted by groups went on to lobby the Minister.
The National CLT Network, UK Cohousing and other sector bodies have been working closely with Government on the most effective design for the next four years of the Fund. The full prospectus will be launched in January. However, the Minister confirmed that capital and revenue funding will be available and that the funding will also be used to invest and develop the local enabling services across the country that support community groups as well as to build the national infrastructure that the National CLT Network, UK Cohousing and CCH have already started to work on.
From January 2018, groups will be able to apply to Homes England for funding, with allocations announced around April 2018.