Community Land Trusts and Cooperative Housing

The London Assembly Housing Committee is investigating the support being given to Community Land Trusts and Co-operative Housing initiatives, and what challenges are facing these projects. 

This investigation will consist of a visit to two London Community Land Trust (CLT) sites on 26 June, followed by a formal meeting on 24 July. This investigation will seek to: 

• Examine how CLTs and Housing Cooperatives operate in London.  
• Identify the key opportunities and challenges relating to this sector and the extent the Mayor has provided support for both. 
• Explore what further opportunities there are for the Mayor to support CLTs and Housing Cooperatives.
• Identify the extent to which CLTs and Housing Cooperatives support communities in London to access housing, understanding demographically who benefits from the schemes.

• Through the delivery of affordable homes and involvement of local communities in development, community-led housing has gained support over the last decade as the demand for housing supply and affordability has increased, and Londoners report wanting a more meaningful role in delivering housing. 
• The Mayor’s £38m London Community Housing Fund is open to community-led housing applicants (including CLTs and Housing Cooperatives) that plan to start on site by March 2026. In 2023-24, the Mayor spent £10.7m of the Community Housing Fund.  
• The London Community-Led Housing Hub, an organisation which provides support for community groups looking to develop new homes, was allocated £2.8m from the Mayor’s London Community Housing Fund. 
• A vast majority of Housing Cooperatives are Registered Providers of Social Housing and can apply for the Mayor’s Affordable Homes Programme funding to build social rent homes for members. 
• Launched in 2018, the Mayor’s ‘Small Sites, Small Builders’ programme aims to increase the availability of small, publicly owned sites to small developers, housing associations, and community led organisations. 
   

1. How do CLTs and Housing Cooperatives ensure that the allocation process is fair, and that the resident population is diverse and reflective of the local community? 
2. To what extent do local authorities support the finance, development and promotion of CLTs and Housing Cooperatives in boroughs?
3. To what extent has the London Community Housing Fund, the Community-led Housing Hub, and capital grants through the Affordable Homes Programme benefited CLTs and Housing Cooperatives in London and what has been the net gain to the delivery of homes in the sector? What challenges have faced these initiatives?
4. How should the Mayor support CLTs and Housing Cooperatives over the next Mayoral term to enable them to scale up, including any capital funding provided through the Affordable Homes Programme, technical support, or making land available through Small Sites Small Builders programme?
5. What different financial models and criteria do CLTs and Housing Cooperatives operate under? And, which are most successful in providing and maintaining affordable homes for local communities? 
6. What relationship should CLT and housing cooperative models have with local authorities and how can they play a role in supporting the need for local authorities to provide different housing tenures? 

As part of this investigation, the Committee has issued a Call for Evidence. 

This Call for Evidence is open to all who would like to respond. We particularly welcome responses from CLTs, Housing Cooperatives, London Boroughs, and organisations and networks that support CLTs and Housing Cooperatives in London.

Call for Evidence Pack - PDF

Call for Evidence Pack - Word

Responses should be sent back in a word document format to the scrutiny inbox email address which can be found at the end of the Call for Evidence pack.