Cumbria Rural Housing Trust
Redhills House, Redhills Business Park, Penrith, Cumbria, CA11 0DT
T: 01768 210264 E: W:
Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP
Minister for Housing and Local Government
Department for Communities and Local Government
Eland House
Bressenden Place
London
SW1E 5DU
9th June 2011
Dear Minister,
Give Community Land Trusts (CLTs) the right to hold on to their land
I am writing as the Chair of the Cumbria Community Land Trust Project to request that a CLT has the right to be exempt from leasehold enfranchisement. Since appointment in 2008 the CLT Officer has enabled numerous communities in the county to establish CLTs that are beginning to deliver affordable housing, pub rescue, power generation and tourism schemes. This includes the only rural Big Society initiative - the Lyvennet Trust in Crosby Ravensworth supported by Rory Stewart MP.
There is no doubt that communities believe they can deliver social and economic regeneration and that they will be assisted by the new powers offered by the Localism Bill.However all this good work is threatened by Leasehold Enfranchisement law. Enfranchisement is a major barrier for communities who wish set up and run a CLT. It prevents the CLT or Local Housing Trust from holding long-term ownership of the land and ensuring perpetual affordability. It discourages landowners, be they public or private, from making land available for CLTs and undermines assurances that a CLT might give that its assets will be provided in perpetuity. Leasehold enfranchisement is also a major barrier to securing finance for the CLT.
As a current example, Keswick Community Housing Trust was set up by local church groups and is developing a scheme for 11 homes on Diocese land. Keswick is not listed as a Protected Area, yet it has a massive shortage of locally affordable homes. The Trustees are passionate that their scheme must remain permanently affordable and so they will become instantly disillusioned if their voluntary efforts come to nothing due to Enfranchisement law.
We therefore support taking the exemption in Schedule 11 of the Localism Bill and making it applicable, subject to regulation, to all CLT projects that comply with the statutory definition of a CLT and where the local community wishes or needs to apply the exemption.
Yours sincerely,
Charles Ecroyd
Chair
Cumbria CLT Steering Group
This project is part financed by the European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development: Europe Investing in Rural Areas being delivered through the North West Development Agency with Defra as the Managing Authority and by the Tudor Trust and previously by the Lake District National Park Authority; Eden District Council, South Lakeland District Council; South Lakeland LSP, Eden Housing Association, Westfield Housing Association, Carlisle City Council.
Data Protection Registration Number Z810236X Company Registration Number 292 0997 Registered Charity Number: 1064136