It’s no secret the UK is currently grappling with a severe housing crisis. However, Dr Jess Steele of Hastings Commons, suggests we should be thinking about so much more than just building new housing units.
Hastings Commons is a an inspiring example of what happens when a community takes charge of its own future. Based in Hastings, one of the most deprived towns in England, with a housing shortage so severe the council was told last year it might go bankrupt, they are an alternative to the ‘slash and burn’ approach to regeneration. At their core is a Community Land Trust, which enables them to own and develop land for the benefit of the community, to be run by local people in perpetuity.
The community initiative has been awarded gold in the prestigious 2025 World Habitat Award in partnership with UN-Habitat, as the only gold winner in the global north.
The World Habitat awards were established in 1985 to celebrate and promote good habitat practices. This year, entries were received from 55 countries worldwide and the winners were chosen following a nine month selection process by international housing experts. The initiatives chosen for the awards offer proven solutions for housing affordability, ending homelessness, decarbonising housing and increasing climate resilience, and improving gender equity and social inclusion.
Below Dr Jess Steele, CEO of Hastings Commons shares her thoughts.
The award is recognition that through Hastings Commons and the wider Hastings Housing Alliance, we are leading the way to develop, demonstrate and share community-led solutions to the housing crisis that also tackle other issues such as dereliction, pollution, social instability and economic hardship.
Over the past decade, we have been taking on a series of difficult and derelict buildings (8,500 square metres overall) in the White Rock neighbourhood of central Hastings and renovating them into homes, workspaces, and a wide variety of social spaces.
When we took on our first building in 2014 we had a report that said it would cost £1.9M to convert. However, we only had £80k, but that didn’t stop us – we threw away the report and got on with renovating two floors for local micro-enterprises that we knew needed space. We took vacant possession in October 2014 and our first tenants moved in six months later. Then we took a loan from Big Issue Invest and put in six affordable flats. Over the following years, we gradually completed the building in a series of stages, each shaped by the ever-growing community within the building. Looking back, we call that process ‘phased organic development’ and we’ve been doing it ever since.
A series of principles have emerged from and guide our work:
Commons are made of three parts – the common resources (the buildings and spaces); the commoners – those that step up to enjoy and take responsibility for the resources; and commoning – the action they take together to sustain and expand the commons.
We build on the assets we already have in terms of buildings and people – we call it ‘darning the fabric’, not just physically but socially, economically, culturally. It’s about taking care of the neighbourhood as a collective inheritance, tackling immediate needs and opportunities in the meanwhile and taking action for the long term through our climate commitment and community power building.
The not-for-profit model based around a community land trust prioritises long-term sustainability and permanent community ownership of land. The Commons approach encourages residents to take control and shape their neighbourhood, so it meets their needs and increases their connection to and pride in where they live.
Home is not just about housing units, it’s about building and nurturing community. The spaces people need are not just bedroom/bathroom/kitchen but spaces to be together. What we do at Hastings Commons is much more than housing: this is community-led regeneration of a whole neighbourhood that had been seriously neglected, showing that there is a real alternative to top-down models of regeneration and development.
The government target to build 1.5 million housing units is a necessary but inadequate tool for making the change we need to see. And it will not be met only by subsidising the volume housebuilders with their large sites. We need to diversify the housebuilding industry and see SME, community-led, custom and self build all playing a much bigger role. The provision and ongoing management of new homes will require a step-change in how we treat existing buildings. In Hastings, 40% of the stock was built before 1919 (double the national average). We need retrofit, but the over-extension of the brand-new Building Safety Act regime to include buildings that are pretty much the opposite of Grenfell Tower is making this much harder than it was to start with.
We are currently completing three big renovation projects – but are always struggling within a crazy funding environment that is frustratingly obstructive to long-term neighbourhood transformation, or even the basic survival of core work. The previous government spent £300 million on new youth spaces and facilities but there is no revenue funding to pay for youth workers.
After 10 years of rising to these challenges to achieve a better future for the buildings and people of the commons, the journey continues. The goals for the coming years are a) to reach ‘steady state’ through long-term income streams and strong foundation and b) to build the agency, skills, and power for local people to grow and protect the Commons for future generations.
Photos from Hastings Commons and Mike Erskine via UnSplash
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England’s housebuilding progress is looking frail, especially in the North