My husband Peter spent Christmas working up a scheme for the two sites to house 5-7 units, to make the most of the site. He was also formulating a proposal to convince the church that, rather than sell off the ‘family silver’ to fund philanthropic ‘mission’, community housing was, in fact, a mission purpose in … More Community Housing is mission
‘Hope for Housing’. The Community Land Trust Conference was just that – a ray of hope in an otherwise hopeless housing market. To understand why this ray of hope is so important one has to realise just how hopeless the ordinary person feels, the feeling of despair at not being in control of one’s destiny, … More Hope for Housing: CLT conference
Naked House encouraged us to seek out Peter George, Head of the Regeneration team at Enfield. He was a pioneering and visionary leader, although very busy. Perhaps we could make contact and look to do something on a smaller scale as a self build community initiative? The benefit of having a similar narrative, Stephen said, … More Community-led homes is best value
Stephen likened our approach to a not-for profit Community Interest Company called Naked House. They were part of the Urban Community Land Trust family and, like us, were responding to the need of families who don’t qualify for social housing but are unable to afford a home on the open market. In 2015 they won a … More Naked House
We began to pick up where we had left off with our ideas of community building. If the Church and Council were looking at marrying the two sites for a larger housing development, then being both public mission landowners surely they should at least consider a community scheme for local families committed to the local … More Building community – could this be key?
“Pick yourself up, brush yourself off and start all over again,” my old philosophy tutor used to say. I was deeply disappointed. When I rang the Diocese development manager a few days later his manner was cooler than it had been (at least I imagined so). When I asked where we stood he confirmed the … More A small open window
Excited and nervous we sent the Heads of Terms to the Church and now had to hope and wait. We didn’t have to wait long but it wasn’t the news we were hoping for. An email came through from the Development Manager on 7th November:“At the very last minute, I have been contacted by the local … More Dead end?
We did however need a partner. I had recently become friends with a mother whose daughter was in my son’s class who was in a similar position to ourselves. I had bumped into her on several occasions outside the school gates and we had discussed our housing dilemmas. She longed for a home of their … More Partnering up
To know whether we could afford to make a deal on the land we had to work out our build costs. Peter had a rough estimation of build costs and a friend gave us an excel spreadsheet of his own project as a guide. The homebuilding website gives a good guide and you can get … More How much will it cost?
The Diocese determined to sell the vicarage plot (with access road) in November and the development manager invited us to make an offer. We still retained our ideas of community building and hoped that during the negotiation period we might persuade the church to hold on to their land and consider a wider community project with … More Negotiating a deal – working out the value of land
Diary of a Wannabe Self Builder 