Table 1.1 brings this information together to summarise what can be identified as driving people to create or shape their own homes and neighbourhoods in the UK. This summary demonstrates some key ambitions of local people to shape local housing and neighbourhood circumstances:
•to have a deciding role in the creation of the dwellings that will be most appropriate for local households, particularly on the design, cost and tenure of those properties;
•to acquire and manage empty or ‘under’-used property in order to give it a suitable and positive use;
•to influence how housing resources are allocated and properties are maintained;
•to shape the design and facilities of entire neighbourhoods, not just the quality of some residential dwellings, at times in order to provide for ‘communities of interest’ sharing ideological, political or social backgrounds;
•to meet a diverse range of needs of individuals and of groups, which themselves may be organised in a variety of ways and scales and be from varied cultural backgrounds.
The list above also includes aspirations less frequently included in descriptions of households seeking control over their home environments, such as the motivations of ‘travelling’ households, or for creating ‘eco-housing’ that will minimise energy consumption for low-income households.
There is lastly an inclusion of some associated community-based aspirations, such as enhancing the skills and employability of local residents, or to establish a local stewardship over cherished buildings, places or facilities (similar to the historic description of being a steward over the assets of a country estate).
What is not included in the summary is any reference to individuals or community agencies being motivated to undertake building or property development primarily to generate capital profit. Some local projects may certainly hope that funds could be generated to cover the costs of other community-centred activities (or even for further building plans), but that hope for the future is rarely sufficient reason to devote such time and energy to complex activity in the present day. The information in Table 1.1 deliberately also excludes motivations to raise profits for personal gain, even if, here and there, that may be an intention of some private individuals. The message of the list above is fundamentally what galvanises a variety of collaborative works.
How such motivations have subsequently informed specific practices is explored in the next chapters.
Notes
1Around 200 or so societies remain in the UK, offering a range of financial services products to their members.
2These have invariably undergone a series of successive renovations such that they now resemble leafy but orthodox rural and suburban development.
3See the report in the Guardian online, 19 January 2020, www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jan/19/housing-giants-put-profit-before- peoples-needs-report-reveals
4Affordable Housing Commission (2019), ‘Defining and Measuring Housing Affordability: An Alternative Approach’, AHC, Smith Institute, UK.
5Hammond, J.L & Hammond, B. (1917), The Town Labourer 1760–1832, Longmans, Green & Co, London.
6The UK Mutual Housing Alliance included CDS Co-operatives; Community Gateway Network; Confederation of Co-operative Housing; Co-operatives UK; National Community Land Trusts Network; Community Self-Build Agency; Locality; National Custom & Self-Build Association; National Federation of Tenant Management Organisations; Radical Routes; Self-Help Housing; UK Cohousing Network.
7Now called ‘World Habitat’ (see www.world-habitat.org/publications/).
8Building and Social Housing Foundation (2015), ‘Scaling Up Community-led Housing: A proposal to the Nationwide Foundation’, Coalville, UK, p 3.
9Building and Social Housing Foundation (2016), ‘Community-led Housing’, Coalville, UK, p 2–3.
10Homes England (2018), ‘Community Housing Fund Prospectus’ (Open Government Licence).
11The CHF Prospectus also notes ‘this may be done through a mutually supported arrangement with a Registered Provider that owns the freehold or leasehold for the property’.
12See the very useful summary compiled by Lang, R., Carriou, C. & Czischke, D. (2018), ‘Collaborative Housing Research (1990–2017): A Systematic Review and Thematic Analysis of the Field’, Housing, Theory and Society, 35(1): 10–39.
13Including National Self-Build Centre; Canal and River Trust; Community Finance Solutions; Diggers & Dreamers; Action on Empty Homes; Shelter; Global Ecovillage Network; Eurotopia; European Network for Housing Research.
Further reading
Barlow, J., Jackson, R. & Meikle, J. (2001), Homes to DIY For: The UK’s Self-build Housing Market in the Twenty-first Century, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York, UK.
Barton, H. (ed) (2000/2013), Sustainable Communities: The Potential for Eco-Neighbourhoods, Earthscan, London.
Benson, M. & Hamiduddin, I. (2017), Self-Build Homes: Social Discourse, Experiences and Directions, UCL Press, London.
Coates, C. (2001), Utopia Britannica: British Utopian Experiments 1325–1945, Diggers & Dreamers Publications, BCM Edge, London.
Coates, C. (2012), Communes Britannica – A History of Communal Living in Britain 1939–2000, Diggers & Dreamers Publications, BCM Edge, London.
Colenutt, B. (2020), The Property Lobby – The Hidden Reality Behind the Housing Crisis, Policy Press, Bristol, UK.
Eno, S. & Treanor, D. (1982), The Collective Housing Handbook, Laurieston Hall Publications, Castle Douglas, Scotland.
Gooding, J. & Johnston T. (eds) (2015), Understanding the Potential of Small-Scale Community Led Housing, Locality, London.
Gosden, P.H. (1973), Self Help: Voluntary Associations in Nineteenth