Tory government would remove barriers to CLTs
A Conservative government would break down the barriers preventing community land trusts (CLTs) from flourishing across England.
Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps told delegates at New Start’s community land trusts conference in London that the party is currently working on a report identifying and providing solutions to any legal and bureaucratic barriers, in a bid to help create ‘hundreds and thousands of CLTs’.
‘There are so many hurdles preventing community land trusts from expanding,’ Mr Shapps said.
‘I want to see all barriers broken down so that communities have the freedom to create the homes they want.’
The report is being written by Karl Dayson, chair of the Tory CLT taskforce, who told delegates that barriers to the development of CLTs range from the financial to the cultural.
Access to finance is a key issue, with banks making it difficult for individuals to access mortgages and for CLTs themselves to access funding.
He suggested the creation of a public facilitation fund which would act as guarantor and remove the risks for lenders.
He cited the US, which is further down the route of developing community land trusts than England.
There CLTs initially struggled to access finance, but now banks offer better rates to CLT customers.
The attitude of regional officials, who often view CLTs as ‘havens for cults and extremists’ also needs to be tackled, Mr Dayson said, and he wants to see the ‘incredibly complex and often adversarial’ planning system in the UK turned on its head to encourage the development of CLTs.
He said communities should be involved in creating a local housing plan on which they vote and which acts as the basis for all further development.
He added: ‘We’ve tried centrally driven ways and it may have worked well in the 50s, but now we need to try another way.
'Now we need to listen and to have conversations with people in communities’.
- New Start filmed interviews with Grant Shapps and other CLT experts at the event including Bob Paterson, co-founder and project director at Community Finance Solutions, a think tank at Salford University; and Richard Blakeway, the London mayor Boris Johnson’s housing adviser. The clips are available on YouTube at http://tiny.cc/pF2ND.
by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
