ACT, or Action with Communities in Cumbria, is a rural and community development charity for Cumbria. They champion community and rural issues and support communities. In particular they are very experienced in helping communities deliver affordable, community led housing. Fran Richardson offered to run a workshop to help us articulate what we are doing, why we are doing it, what we want to achieve (our vision), and to draw out some fundamental values which we can take forward. Tom Nash, at Greystoke Castle, kindly offered to host us on Monday 2nd December. Here are the main themes from that session.

Where are we now, and where do we want to get to?

Greystoke is a lively village, with a strong sense of community shared by both longstanding and more recent residents. It has a wide range of amenities which are enthusiastically supported by local people.

Currently there is insufficient affordable housing in our community to meet the needs of young families and people working on average local wages. Downsizing locally is also a challenge. Our population is ageing fast. Without intervention, the character of the Greystoke community and our ability to sustain services will suffer.

We want Greystoke to be a place where people of all ages and financial means can have their housing needs met affordably and to a high standard. We want local people to have a significant say in how the village and surrounding area develops to meet its needs, creating a sustainable model for future residents. 

In our survey responses from earlier in the year, 93% of respondents believed residents should be more closely involved in housing development within Greystoke and the wider parish. And the responses we got when we asked why we should try to build more affordable homes talked about diversity of the community and the importance of young people and families being able to live here and support local services and businesses. There was a really strong sentiment in support of keeping the community and the village alive. So we hope, and feel, these statements of where we are now, and where we want to get to, reflect the community view.

One for the geeks …

The last census can be explored in more detail for our parish here, but there are some interesting statistics. Nearly 33% of people live on their own, and nearly 70% of our accommodation has 3 or more bedrooms. If there are any statisticians out there who want to dig into this in more detail, please do get in touch as we’d love to hear your insights. NB Stats are from the 2021 census and as such precede the Fawn Meadows development. See the FAQs for more up to date population figures.

How will we achieve this?

We intend to form a Community Land Trust (CLT) – an organisation that holds assets for the community. Indeed a CLT must have what is called an ‘asset lock’ which dictates that assets can only be sold or developed in a manner which benefits the local community. As an aside, those community assets do not need to be housing stock, although that is what we are currently focussing on. We’ll be writing more on what a CLT is soon!

Our aim will be to provide affordable, local homes. Homes will be:

Our work will engage as much of the community as possible, contributing to a healthy future for the parish.

The CLT will earn the trust of the community through open, inclusive decision-making and we will respect the views of others. We are planning to make sure that the Community Land Trust continues to provide benefits for the local community long into the future.

What next?

We’re going to be concentrating on 3 main things:

Get involved!

If you want to know more, feel you can help in any way (with even just a small amount of time) or have any questions, drop us an email, message on facebook or leave a comment below. And please do sign up for our mailing list to make sure you stay up to date.

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