News: CCLT provides more detail on its plans

At a public meeting last night, Martin Gossling, Chair of Chilbolton Community Land Trust, and his fellow Board trustees gave a presentation on the progress they have made since the inaugural Annual General Meeting in May.

Mr Gossling explained that the meeting was informal and was open to CCLT members and the public. He said that he was not expecting members to agree policies at the meeting. He did, though, invite questions and comments.

Sixteen members of the public listened and participated in the discussions.

In this article:

Board membership

The CCLT Board now comprises seven trustees:

  • Martin Gossling - Chair and Secretary
  • Maureen Treadwell - Treasurer
  • Andrew Bradley - Communications Officer
  • Neil Connor
  • Cllr David Hall
  • Cllr Sue Larcombe
  • Steve Picco

Richard Youell, who had previously been a trustee, had announced his intention to step down and will be formally removed from the Board.

Responsibilities have been allocated to trustees, but Mr Gossling said that it was clear that two more trustees were needed. In particular, someone with finance experience - perhaps an accountant - was needed to bolster the skill set of the Board.

Possible involvement of a Housing Association

He said that the trustees were considering subcontracting the building and management of the 12 homes to a housing association. In response to a question from a member, he confirmed that they wouldn’t set up CCLT as a Housing Association itself.

He pointed out that a potential risk was that if a small association were chosen as subcontractor, it might subsequently be taken over by a larger association.

He confirmed that CCLT had not yet contacted any housing associations. When there was a firmer plan, the Board would bring it back to members for a vote.

CCLT’s new website

Andy Bradley presented the new CCLT website. He explained that it would hold all CCLT documents. These would be available to CCLT members via a secure login. Trustees also have an area where their documents and communications would be kept.

Members can sign up at the website. All they need to do is provide an email address and a password, and they will be sent a link by email which confirms their login.

Policies for CCLT

Steve Picco is co-ordinating the drafting of policies for CCLT. They cover twelve areas, which are all as yet in draft.

The meeting discussed the policy on conflicts of interest. A member said that he had never seen one which allowed a trustee who had declared an interest to join Board discussion, but then not be allowed to vote.

Maureen Treadwell explained that the policy should allow for someone who prospectively might live in one of CCLT’s homes, also to be a trustee. This would allow that person to guide policy with their view of what is important to prospective tenants.

Mr Picco pointed out that the draft on conflict of interest already amounted to over two pages. Mr Gossling suggested that the member who raised the issue contribute to the drafting, to which he agreed.

Another member offered to provide data protection policies.

Martin Gossling said that the completed draft policies would be available on the CCLT website, and that they would be for the approval of members.

Financial planning

Maureen Treadwell outlined the work that had been done on finance. There are two broad areas: immediate costs and longer-term funding.

Immediate costs

These are smaller costs including, for example, the costs of setting up the new website.

She explained that CCLT has applied for an £8,000 grant from the National Lottery. An account has been opened with the Co-operative Bank with two trustee signatories.

CCLT is also registered with the Financial Conduct Authority, to whom they will make annual returns.

In addition, CCLT has also registered with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for Gift Aid. This allows a charity to get tax back on donations that are made to it.

Longer-term funding

The project will need approximately £1.8 million to cover build costs, although this depends on mix and number of houses. Government grants are available, but currently only 20% of applications to become a registered housing provider are successful.

Ms Treadwell outlined other possible sources of larger-scale funding. These include:

  • Crowd funding
  • Eco lenders
  • Profits from shared ownership
  • Partnership opportunities

An important source would be the gifting of land, or its sale at a reduced cost. She pointed out that if the costs were more than £10,000 per plot, the project would not be financially viable

Build costs

Sovereign - one of the largest Housing Associations in England with over 85,000 homes - have these costs:

  • £292,000 per plot
  • An average grant of £80,000
  • £10,000 interest payments on debt

The biggest challenge is to achieve an affordable sale or rental cost - in other words, 80% of the local market rate.

Compliance Costs

The costs of complying with relevant legislation depend on the scale of ownership. Aster, a housing Association with over 37,000 homes, have compliance costs of only £1 per property per month. If CCLT were responsible for only 12 homes, compliance costs would be £50 per property per month.

The homes to be built

Martin Gossling outlined CCLT’s current thinking, emphasizing that everything would be put to members for a vote

Trustees believe that they should build for rented affordable accommodation rather than any form of hybrid ownership. The rent levels should be determined by who CCLT expect to be the tenants.

The mix would perhaps be five one-bedroom and seven two-bedroom homes, arranged in three blocks of four. These would be built reasonably cheaply but of good quality, with a similar design to the open-market homes.

The homes would be designed with the prospective tenants in mind and would also be “future proof”.

CCLT would not be building council homes: the affordable homes should be a stepping stone to home ownership. An issue to be resolved is how to limit the term of tenancy, in line with the objective of providing this stepping stone.

Conclusion

The urgent need for housing in Chilbolton was made clear by one resident who said that he and his wife had put their names forward for a two-bedroom downsize home.

They didn’t have Internet access and found it difficult to know whether they were on a list, or what updates there had been.

Trustees explained that CCLT was responsible only for affordable homes and that the downsize list was held be Chilbolton Parish Council.

The resident half-jokingly retorted “I’m eighty-eight. By the time you do all of that, I’ll be pushing up daisies”.