Funding to support community-led housing proposals is now open for applications

A fund to help “cover the revenue costs of project-specific activities that will support the development of community-led housing proposals” has been announced. 

Devon County Council has announced a Community Housing Fund Revenue Programme, supported by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. 

Grants are available for community organisations to help cover the revenue costs of project-specific activities that will support the development of community-led housing proposals.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has a total budget of £4m for this programme which aims to help community-led housing groups in the latter stages of pre-development.

The programme is designed to give community-led housing groups better access to high quality, affordable housing that meets the needs of local communities. The fund will help community groups meet a range of costs incurred in trying to develop housing, including paying for searches, administration costs or legal advice, design work and planning applications. 

Applications are open to all organisations that are formally incorporated, or an equivalent form of a constituted body. This includes registered charities, CICs, Companies Ltd by Guarantee, Community Benefit Societies, Registered Providers and local authorities.

The application process will remain open to receive new applications until funding is fully committed (or until 31 December 2021, whichever occurs first).

The grant will fund pre-development work so that schemes can complete the work required to progress the scheme towards:

• submitting a planning application, and/or
• submitting a capital funding bid, and/or
• getting to start on site.

The pre-development work funded must be completed by the end of March 2022 so Community Led Homes (a partnership project between the Confederation of Co-operative Housing, Locality, the National Community Land Trust Network and UK Cohousing) encourages you to submit your applications as soon as possible to maximise the time you have to spend the grant.

The programme will not be suitable for groups who are just forming and need start-up support, or schemes that are at an early stage of pre-development. If you have a community led housing project that is at an earlier stage, please contact your nearest Enabler Hub to see what support they offer you. You can find your nearest hub here.