Welcome

Welcome to the Summer edition of the Homes of Our Own newsletter.

We would love to talk to any new readers and about community led housing and if you would like us to attend a community event to help promote a community led housing scheme please contact us. 

Key Sector Updates

the perfect opportunity to learn about the new guide and understand how they can work in partnership with you to build more homes.

#RuralHousingWeek

Group Updates

Seend Community Land Trust have taken a huge step forward with the formal granting of planning permission for affordable homes in the parish. The plans for the 11-home project, which includes one self-build home and ten affordable homes to enable local people to be housed in the village, have recently received approval. The scheme will be built at Park Farm in Seend Cleeve and

will be built to Passivhaus standard, meaning the residents will benefit from lower than average electricity bills. This high design standard has been possible due to funding and support from Homes England and Wiltshire Council, together with investment by White Horse Housing Association.

The project has been driven forward by Seend Community Land Trust, a community organisation with over 250 members. Over the last few years Seend Community Land Trust has worked closely with the Wiltshire and Swindon community-led housing hub (Homes of Our Own), White Horse Housing Association and PKA Architects to progress the scheme to this stage.

The homes range from one to four-bedroom properties. Seven of the properties will be available on an affordable rented basis and 3 will be offered as shared ownership.

Construction of the homes is hoped to commence in September 2021 and the project be completed in the autumn of 2022.

The Broad Chalke Neighbourhood Plan went through referendum on Thursday 1st July 2021 with an overwhelmingly positive result. Broad Chalke CLT have been working in partnership with the Neighbourhood Plan group to deliver a community led housing scheme in the village and this positive result will allow them to progress the submission of a planning application for six affordable homes for people with a local connection to the parish. Homes of Our Own send our congratulations to all involved in this process!

Cricklade Development Foundation are moving forward with their plans to provide community led homes in the town, with the purchase of the police station building. A community share issue with the target of raising £200,000 – with a stretch target of £250,000 is underway in the community.

Locality Resources

A community engagement guide is also available via the Locality Website and is titled Engaging your community in a meaningful way, the guide is for voluntary and community sector organisations and has details of various traditional and digital community engagement tools, with overviews of how they work and when best to use them.

Don’t forget the Homes of Our Own resources page for our factsheets on multiple community led housing topic areas including:

• Virtual Meetings;
• Social Media;
• Our Start Up Grants for New Groups;
• Community Organising Training Package.

Community Organising Training for Community Led Housing Groups

As well as offering grants of up to £2,000 for newly forming community led housing groups, Homes of Our Own are pleased to offer an exclusive Community Organising offer. This free training, worth £500, is part of the package of start-up support for new and emerging community led housing groups supported by Homes of Our Own.

The training will help groups develop strategies around listening, power and actions and, by working through a case study, will allow communities to develop an action plan to suit their housing need. ​Further details can be found in the Community Organising Training Factsheet on the Resources page of our website and for more details about Community Organising, please visit Community Organisers.

Image Credit: Community Organisers

Community First Update – COs

Commissioning Group and give a really clear picture of how being a part of your community affects your thoughts on cancer

Drop us a call or email on

aneale@communityfirst.org.uk
kwatson@communityfirst.org.uk