A recent project has successfully raised awareness of and enthusiasm for Community Led Housing across rural North and East Yorkshire. Where there had previously been no developments of this type, the work engaged with a large number of communities and stakeholders to help them understand the opportunities and led to the identification of twelve pilot rural communities who would like to pursue community led housing developments.

Work on one of the pilots, North Yorkshire’s first community led housing scheme, started on site last month in Richmondshire. Villagers in Hudswell – already famous for its award winning community pub – are coming together to build three houses for local people who cannot afford to buy a home there. We hope that the great work that they have been doing there inspires other community groups to bring forward additional projects across our area.

The project was funded by the Nationwide Foundation, National Co-Housing Network and North Star Housing Group and was undertaken by Social Regeneration Consultants, working closely with Rural Housing Enablers, Local Authorities and Community First Yorkshire.

Gary Hartin, Programme Manager from the Nationwide Foundation, said: “We know that although individual community-led housing schemes are often small, the energy and commitment of local people and organisations can create a big impact for the individuals and communities in which they work. This has been clearly demonstrated by the success in north and east Yorkshire, where this project has unleashed and nurtured the potential for 12 schemes to progress to the stage of creating affordable homes, which is a cause for much celebration.”

Emma Speight, Executive Director of Assets and Growth at North Star, said: “We are really pleased to support this project.  At North Star, we recognise the issues caused by the lack of good quality, affordable housing in some rural areas and we want to work together to combat this.  Research has shown that there are many communities in our area keen to bring forward plans for housing that meets local needs and that, regionally, there is a wealth of experience available to support such aspirations.

“We welcome opportunities to work with local residents to help address some of those housing shortages and we have a strong track record of supporting local communities and working in partnerships. In North Yorkshire we work closely with the Rural Housing Enabler Network  who can also be contacted by any individual or group for further information about Community led housing. http://www.nycyerhousing.co.uk/rural-affordable-homes/contact-us-1/

A set of resources to help rural communities understand community led housing will be produced later in the year and the pilots and the report from this work will now link in with wider activity across the area, supported by the recently allocated Community Housing Fund from the Government.

If you would like to know more about community led housing, please contact your Rural Housing Enabler or Community First Yorkshire. More information and a copy of the final report is available here http://www.nycyerhousing.co.uk/community-led-housing/