“Community land trusts (CLTs) are set up and run by ordinary people to develop and manage homes as well as other assets important to that community, like community enterprises, or workspaces. CLTs act as long-term stewards of land and housing, ensuring that it remains genuinely affordable, based on what people actually earn in their area, not just for now but for every future occupier.”
National CLT NetworkWhy do people start up CLTs?
People set up and join CLTs for all sorts of different reasons such as:
- a lack of suitably sized and located affordable sustainable homes for young people, older people, or families in the neighbourhood – where people are struggling to find somewhere to live or have to move out of the area, and communities want to do something about it (this is the background to developing an alternative vision for Ryebank Fields should it be sold for development).
- key community assets being sold without any community consultation or joined up thinking about how key sites could be used or interrelate to each other (this is the background to identifying an opportunity for the Staying Alive project on the Co-op FuneralCare site).
- the community preparing a Neighbourhood Plan and wanting to take charge about how that Plan is then delivered.
In all these cases, it’s about people wanting to make their area a better place to live, and having more control over how that happens.
The Community Land Trust movement
- There are about 300 CLTs in the country with over 17,000 members. They are diverse – mainly housing, but shops, pubs, sustainable energy and food growing all feature.
- A CLT must be set up to benefit a defined community;
- A CLT must be not-for-private-profit. And any surplus must be used to benefit the community;
- Local people living and working in the community must have the opportunity to join the CLT as members; and contribute to how the CLT is run;
- CLTs hold land in perpetuity for the benefit of the community.
Chorlton CLT has defined its community as Chorlton and Chorlton Park Wards, in terms of where we operate. However we welcome members both from within and from outside this area who have an interest in our work, and subscribe to our Vision.