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Sadiq Khan launches £38m fund for community-led housing
The mayor of London has launched a £38m fund for community-led housing as part of his plan to address the capital’s housing crisis.
The new London Community Housing Fund is expected to create 500 community-led homes by 2023 and will provide grants or loans for building, development and delivery. The funding will also help with planning application and design fees.
Community-led housing allows local people to get directly involved in building and managing new homes themselves, often through co-operatives and community land trusts. Small plots of publicly owned land are already being made more accessible to London’s small and medium-sized builders – including community-led housing groups.
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Mr Khan said: “In London we have become far too reliant on large developers to build new housing. We need more homes to be built by councils and by communities themselves – and so I want to support more community-led housing projects that put London residents at the heart of the process.”
The fund opens for bids today in a simplified bidding process with standardised legal contracts. City Hall has published a prospectus providing guidance for community groups, and advice for people who wish to form such a group.
Mr Khan added: “This new fund offers practical support and help with development costs that have often held community-led projects back. I urge Londoners interested in developing their own homes to read through our new guidance and bid for funding.”
In October the mayor gave almost £1m in grant funding to the Rural Urban Synthesis Society, a Lewisham-based community land trust, to help it deliver 33 social rented and affordable homes.
