Community land trust to build on two London sites

London Community Land Trust has been chosen to deliver community-led housing on two sites in the capital, as part of a new pilot programme by Sadiq Khan.

The urban community land trust has been confirmed as the successful bidder to build around 70 new homes on sites at Cable Street (Tower Hamlets) and Christchurch Road (Lambeth), which have been brought forward by Transport for London (TfL).

The two sites were brought forward through the London mayor’s ‘Small Sites, Small Builders’ pilot programme.

Ten small TfL sites located across seven different boroughs were launched in February as part of the pilot, many of which are ‘left over’ land. The number of homes proposed at each site range from two to 90.

Both the Cable Street and Christchurch Road sites were restricted to bids from community land trusts (CLTs) building 100% affordable housing.

Homes are kept permanently affordable through a resale price covenant which requires all residents to sell the home to the next household at a price according to local earnings.

In addition to the two CLT sites, contractor and developer Kuropatwa Limited has been named as the successful bidder for Beechwood Avenue, a site in Barnet which will deliver a proposed 60 homes at 50 per cent affordable, and developer Broadhaven Estates won a Colliers Wood site for a proposed five homes.

‘Making small plots of public land available for housing development is a key part of addressing London’s housing shortage, and the fantastic response to the pilot of my “Small Sites, Small Builders” programme has shown that these small sites can be an important way to get new genuinely affordable homes built,’ said London mayor, Sadiq Khan.

‘I am also proud to support community-led housing, and I am pleased that London Community Land Trust will be building 100 per cent affordable housing on their sites in Tower Hamlets and Lambeth, which will make a huge difference to those communities.

‘Not only will this programme help to provide the new, genuinely affordable homes that Londoners so desperately need, but it will also reinvigorate our small and medium-sized homebuilders after years of over-reliance on large developers.’

The homes will be priced according to average local incomes and based on the principle that residents shouldn’t have to pay more than one third of their income on their mortgage – meaning that they will typically be sold at between a third and half of market value.

The co-director of London Community Land Trust, Calum Green, said: ‘London should be a city for all. To do that, we must build more homes that Londoners can afford. Community land trusts are a way for Londoners to play our part in delivering the genuinely and permanently affordable homes that our city desperately needs.

‘These two sites, announced by the mayor today, will mean over two hundred people will no longer be forced to leave London and can stay in the neighbourhood they call home.’