Skip to primary content
Skip to secondary content

HaSS Research Impact

Research Impact from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS), Newcastle University

HaSS Research Impact

Main menu

  • Home
  • About Us

Tag Archives: community

Bridging the gap in knowledge to action: focussing on local impact to enable community-led cohousing in the North East

Posted on 23 August, 2019 by Eve
Reply

Dr Helen Jarvis has worked extensively with the UK Cohousing Network and other Civil Society Organisations (CSO) she tells Dr Eve Forrest about her recent ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) project and how the cohousing concept could help solve the current housing crisis. 

The principles of cohousing are simple: provide individuals with their own private living space, plus access to common areas and shared facilities. Cohousing schemes typically feature a mix of 15-30 houses and flats, designed as connected neighbourhoods that encourage plenty of interaction: including a common house (where neighbours prepare meals and eat together) designed to foster and support the spirit of sharing and togetherness. Key to distinguishing community-led cohousing from commercial brands of ‘co-living’ (such as The Collective, London) is the participatory design process and non-hierarchical resident management structure.

Current research shows various forms of communal housing to be a growing trend, associated with our ageing society, more people living alone, escalating house prices, and shifting lifestyle choices including eco-political awareness.  Sharing the financial and practical responsibilities of housing, rather than struggling alone, can make life easier through all stages of life. Residents who are attracted to cohousing know that they can make a difference by sharing housing and community resources with their neighbours.  To make this work they have to acquire new skills of collective governance. Combining sustainable buildings with fewer private and more shared goods helps to reduce wasteful consumption too, something we should all start thinking about given the recent statements on the current Climate Emergency.

In the UK, cohousing belongs to a niche sector of community-led housing (CLH) which has begun to effectively organise and lobby the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) as an umbrella entity: Community Led Homes. CLH brings together Community Land Trusts (CLT) (a legal entity designed to provide and protect locally valued assets), Housing Cooperatives and self-help housing (volunteers rehabilitating empty property), as well as the internationally recognised Cohousing design methodology.

My original research established public dialogue and practitioner engagement on a national scale of policy and planning in England, Wales and Scotland, concluding with a final report presented in Parliament at a launch hosted by Richard Bacon MP. Sector-wide political lobbying was instrumental in securing a record £300 million investment in CLH in 2016 through Government commitment to use the proceeds of extra stamp duty on second home sales to establish a Community Housing Fund.  Administered in two waves by Homes England, the Community Housing Fund is intended to help communities build around 6,000 affordable, eco-friendly homes, with grants of up to £75k available to community groups for pre-development revenue costs, plus capital costs for Local Authorities and Registered Providers to help make sites viable for truly affordable non-traditional housing. Sector-wide lobbying also prompted MHCLG sponsorship of further research and evidence to better understand the impact of cohousing on loneliness.

With support from an ESRC IAA I held a ‘focussing event’ for CSOs, civic leaders and housing practitioners to collectively explore local cohousing opportunities. Participants identified common dilemmas of loneliness and isolation, concern to address issues of ageing in place, fuel poverty, environments ill-suited to walking, cycling and inclusive public life, noting that joined-up solutions require us to build communities, not just units of housing.  Community-led housing empowers resident groups to create their own ‘people powered’ local housing solutions.

Impression for how a potential cohousing space might look like

Extensive grassroots engagement via the project helped identify key messages for a short video animation: North East Cohousing Shared Futures, produced in partnership with UK Cohousing Network and Community Led Homes. This resource was made freely available to all interested parties as a tool to ‘demystify’ community-led cohousing for a general audience. The film highlighted the proud tradition of voluntary, community and civil society organising in the North-East as a first step to bridging the gap in knowledge to action. This region faces unique local challenges with rising levels of in-work poverty, loneliness in later life, people and places feeling disconnected. But we can all share stories of a radical past when local communities organised for change – with our once thriving cooperative movement and the knowledge and skills are there to do so again. The North-East, despite hardships, has always had a great tradition of coming together.

All these activities started an ongoing, productive conversation that still continues after the project finished to bring community initiatives and activist groups together and connecting local community groups and spaces. For example, a North-East CLH ‘hub’ has secured Government funding to help provide training and advice to local groups. Moreover, the first elected North of Tyne mayor, Jamie Driscoll, promised ‘genuinely affordable, eco-friendly community-led housing’ as a key pledge in his ambitious manifesto, following consultation with the broad-based CSO Tyne and Wear Citizens.

While the North-East is famous for its radical past and strong support for workers and housing cooperatives in the 1970s, there are currently no inhabited cohousing projects to demonstrate success for the many groups hoping to make CLH a reality on Tyneside.  This is likely to change in the near future. Newcastle City Council has recently secured Community Housing Funds to help community groups secure planning permission on brownfield sites in the west end of the city.

Helen’s paper on Community Housing, sharing and togetherness is available here

Posted in ESRC Impact Acceleration Account | Tagged citizenship, cohousing, community, ESRC, government, housing, IAA, local | Leave a reply

Recent Posts

  • Community heritage in the Derwent Valley: remembering the past, imagining the future
  • Celebrating Social Science
  • Picturing Gertrude Bell
  • Bridging the gap in knowledge to action: focussing on local impact to enable community-led cohousing in the North East
  • Developing social entrepreneurship in emerging economies

Recent Comments

  • cat towers on ‘Learning how to learn’ – finding out about the Community Curriculum approach
  • swimwear sale on Exploring vital partnerships
  • Blog from Dr Paul Cowie on his collaboration with Cap-a-Pie | Performing Research Network on Using Theatre to Engage Communities in Planning
  • Higher spending on elections generally increases levels of integrity : Democratic Audit UK on Does the Cost of Elections Matter For Election Quality?

Archives

  • February 2020
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • May 2016
  • January 2016
  • October 2015
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014

Tags

  • adult learning
  • Aging
  • archives
  • art
  • being human festival
  • blogging
  • caribbean
  • children
  • citizenship
  • collaboration
  • collaborations
  • comics
  • communities
  • community curriculum
  • culture
  • disability
  • elections
  • engagement
  • equality
  • ESRC
  • ESRC IAA
  • evaluation
  • gardens
  • history
  • IAA
  • Impact
  • interdisciplinary
  • KITE
  • knowledge
  • Newcastle University
  • North-East
  • Northern Bridge
  • oceans. food
  • photography
  • schools
  • Scotswood
  • seas
  • sensory
  • singing
  • Stereotypes
  • TWAM
  • VCSE
  • Women
  • writing
  • young people

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Tweets by HaSSResNCL

Newcastle University, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom

Telephone: (0191) 208 6000
From outside the UK dial +44 191 208 6000.