People power is being harnessed to help build more desperately needed homes in local communities.
Huddersfield-based think tank Same Skies and the organisation People Powered Homes are celebrating £60,000 in funding for an innovative solution to the housing crisis.
The grant is to support the future development of community-led housing in West Yorkshire.
Community-led housing is the design, building or management of new homes by community groups to solve local housing problems.
This can lead to houses built where people want and need them but where other models of housing development are not viable.
The award is from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) and will help People Powered Homes bring forward more potential community-led housing projects to meet the need for affordable local homes across West Yorkshire.
The funding award is the result of a five-year process run by Same Skies which has brought together the expertise of citizens, researchers, third sector organisations and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority using a range of creative methods including film making and screenings, writing, group walks, public meetings and expert practitioner workshops.
Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin said: “Here in West Yorkshire we have an ambitious 15-year housing strategy to boost supply, build new affordable homes, improve our existing homes and create vibrant communities.
“By investing in community-led housing, we’ll empower local people with the skills they need to build high-quality homes, while ensuring they have a say over the kinds of homes that are built and where.
“Our funding award to People Powered Homes will enable more community-led housing sites to come forward across West Yorkshire, as we work to deliver a housebuilding revolution and build a greener, more secure region.”
Neil McKenna, who initiated and co-ordinated the Same Skies process, said: “This announcement is brilliant news. It has come from a really innovative and beneficial process of learning collaboratively.
“It means that in the future more housing will be built in sustainable and well-connected neighbourhoods that support the wellbeing of residents.”
Jimm Reed, director of People Powered Homes, said: “I would like to acknowledge the work of Same Skies who have tirelessly advocated community-led housing with the Combined Authority over the past five years.
“They played an essential role in facilitating this funding, as well as helping to achieve recognition of the future role of communities conceiving of – and creating – their own homes, within the recent regional Housing Strategy.
“This funding will help keep West Yorkshire at the forefront of the community-led housing movement across the UK.”
West Yorkshire has a groundbreaking history of community-led housing over three decades, with nationally recognised expertise through projects such as Frontline community self-build, LILAC and Chapeltown Co-housing.
The funding award will allow People Powered Homes to continue this success story, with the aim of identifying, supporting and bringing forward a number of new exciting community-led schemes to site, and also building local capacity to support and encourage more local people to have an active role in shaping new homes in their communities across the region.
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