Wednesday August 15th 3-7 pm Sovereign Calling Roadshow
OCLT in planning to participate in this one day event hosted by Sovereign Vale Housing Association. This will happen on the small green by the shop . Sovereign will be there with some front line staff (housing officer, surveyor, rents advisor) plus some others. So come along and talk to OCLT about our site and your ideas.
We are hoping to get more people involved in clearing the site, contributing to planning discussions and we are also looking for new members including board members.
Bike Day
Oxfordshire Community Land Trust attended the local Bike Day at fogwell on Saturday 14th April. A blustery day (and it blew our house, aka gazebo, down) but we showed the designs to many of those who attended and a few people also expressed interest in getting involved in our work. See pic of one cyclist pedalling herself a healthful smoothie.
Brookes Architects make us dream…
On Saturday March 24th budding architects Will Gamble and Richard Fisher blew us away with some of their visions for homes on the site. This was done as a project with Civic architect Dan Jones (www.civic.org.uk) who some of you may know as he has done the design for the refurb of Dean Court Community Centre. See here for their ideas.
13 people came to look at the designs and discuss which one was the most appropriate for the site.
Option signed on Eynsham Road site
OCLT is delighted to announce that it has signed the option on the small site on Eynsham Road. This means we can proceed with the next stage which is securing money for the design and planning application. However we must still emphasise that we are still raising funds to pay off the costs of the land so we can ensure permanent affordability on the homes (if land costs are not included this reduces the costs of the homes and makes it possible to rent them more cheaply).
Site Clearing
The directors and friends have spent several days clearing the site and erecting a fence to prevent any further fly tipping. Home made sausages tempted a few neighbours to come and visit. Special thanks to Dean Court Residents Association in the shape of Priscilla Waugh who provide us with water for tea!
We’d really appreciate you making contact if you notice any odd activity around the site. Please contact us immediately using the contact form.
A Community Land Trust (a CLT) is an organisation set up to own and manage land by and for a local community. Through this organisation, the land is owned by the community in perpetuity and used for the explicit benefit of that community. It might be used for any purpose which benefits the community to which it is linked: housing, workspace, leisure or horticulture. There are various legal structures which can underpin a CLT (read more) but one key aspect of the idea is that the land cannot be sold off for private gain. Through this mechanism (called an asset lock), the CLT aims to ensure permanent and affordable access to the land for whichever purpose the community needs.
One of the biggest needs, even in this time of recession, is to provide land for affordable housing. Increasing numbers of working people find it difficult or impossible to find a secure and affordable place to live. There is also a great shortage of social housing and many working families have no access to them. (read more section to include stats about numbers waiting in Oxon, ratios of average price to av earnings). CLTs offer a way to provide permanently affordable land (it is permanently owned by the community so doesn’t keep going up in value) for housing and other local needs.
A CLT organisation is set up by a local group of people who get together to DO something to ensure there are more affordable assets for that community. These could be for housing, workspace, food production or leisure. There are various legal mechanisms which can underpin this. OCLT is an Industrial and Provident Society for the Benefit of the Community.
We were registered as an Industrial and Provident society in December 2004 and have been meeting regularly ever since (read more about who we are). In June 2008 we began the process of acquiring a small piece of land in Cumnor Parish (read more under Projects). We aim to build half a dozen affordable homes on this land once Thames Water has replaced the current sewage system. We hope to be able to begin on site by 2012.