This is a member-led, not-for-profit Cooperative Society registered with Financial Services Authority. They are building a community of twenty beautiful homes in Bramley, west Leeds on an old school site. Their community will include a mix of one and two bed flats and three and four bed houses.
Most will have private gardens, and the upper flats will have balconies. The homes will be self contained with kitchens, bathrooms and living space, and finished to a very high standard. A common house will form the heart of the community, offering shared facilities.
We need different models for housing in Hastings that keeps housing affordable long term and is also low energy. The story of how this project got off the ground could be helpful for Hastings. It began with a group of five people who were interested in building their own homes so they could live and bring up their children in a different way.
Housing and access to land is a huge issue in the UK, especially here in the South East.
This project in Leeds looks very exciting, are the flats in the photo theirs?
I’m really interested in exploring the options available to those of us who have unlimited ideas but very limited budgets.
It would be good to meet up with you (is it still 5 people?) and talk about how things could progress.
Hi Nick, Someone from Lilac may be coming to Hastings as part of a housing conference but in the meantime if you want to find out more I suggest you get in touch with Lilac direct.
Lilac is a co-housing community. Co -housing is started by a group of people who want to live together but have their own front door. There are several communities in the uk. Living like this facilities child care and teenage life. It is common for the group to eat an evening meal together at least once a week. Having a Common House allows space for all sorts of sharing activities. Co-Housing is common in Scandinavia and Holland. I think it is a very sane way to live.