Rt. Hon. David Lammy (MP for Tottenham) - "I am supportive of the growing role of community land trusts in order to tackle the housing crisis. The new Mayor of London should support community land trusts in accessing affordable capital finance and land to ensure new homes are genuinely affordable for local people now and into the future."
Rt. Hon. Catherine West (MP for Hornsey and Wood Green) - "I support the community in taking the lead in housing and planning projects, for example through cooperatives and community land trust arrangements. In an era when the Tory government seeks to sell off Local Authority and Housing Association properties, it is time to look at new ways of providing affordable housing."
Joanne McCartney (Deputy Mayor of London and London Assembly Member for Enfield and Haringey) - “The need for housing, particularly genuinely affordable housing is one of the important issues that Londoners face. StART is a great example of the community working together to look at alternative ways towards providing genuinely affordable housing for our communities.”
Sian Berry (General Assembly Member for the Green Party) - “For months I’ve been crisscrossing London arguing in my campaign to be Mayor that the solution to our city’s housing crisis doesn’t lie with the broken model of big developers, but with communities: co-ops, self-builders, local people coming together to plan affordable housing based on their own needs. StART is a perfect example of this kind of initiative and if I’m elected to City Hall in May I’ll do everything I can to support this and community homes projects like it. I believe they are how we can solve the housing crisis in the best way possible.”
Stephen Hill (Housing Development practitioner, Churchill Fellow) - “From a lifetime’s experience in housing development, it’s clear that the way that the housing market now operates is responsible for many of the problems that citizens experience in terms of affordability, displacement and disruption of their communities, and the recent increases in social and economic inequality. It’s an uncomfortable truth that many in positions of power are unwilling or unable to acknowledge. The problems may seem beyond the ability of local and national politicians to solve, but the evidence from my recent research in the USA, Canada and villages, towns and cities across the UK, is that if citizens and politicians work together, they can achieve what they could never have done on their own. It’s time for councils to work with their citizens as equal partners on redemocratising housing markets. No better place to start than StART, and on what is already the public’s land!”
Kevin Logan (Maccreanor Lavington architects)
Peter Burke (A Fairer Society) - "With an ongoing housing crisis, people are taking control of their housing needs. StART Haringey are a fine example of the collective approach. AFS are a collective of Community-Led Housing Professionals. We aim to serve as the developer for projects, or wherever possible support projects in the sector. We are fully behind this wonderful project and will provide time and support wherever needed."
Home (Tenant Foundation) - "StART is an inspiring project. One that works to empower and support local people to shape their communities and build environments that support their needs; their wellbeing and the betterment of the environment in which they live. It is a project which aims to build community through the collaboration of Person and Space and, by doing so, gives local residents the opportunity to build a neighbourhood which truly serves the people that live there."
Chris Brown (Chief Executive of Igloo Regeneration) - "Community Land Trusts, and community-led development more widely, achieve much better quality developments, that also deliver much greater benefits to the local community, than speculative development. They manage to make new development popular! As the previous Planning Minister said, ‘Every community should have one!’. StART have the potential to be one of the best."
Jenny Line (Building and Social Housing Foundation) - "StART is a great example of a local community mobilising to address one of our most challenging problems – a housing market that is failing to provide affordable, decent housing for people who need it. There are fantastic examples of community-led solutions out there that prove it’s possible to do housing differently. It’s great to see more and more people taking this step into making their voices heard and acting to keep their neighbourhoods healthy, thriving, affordable, and socially and economically sustainable."
Haringey Green Party - The Haringey Green Party recently voted unanimously to support us. We are also supported by Ronald Stewart, The Green Party candidate for Haringey and Enfield in the recent Greater London Assembly elections.
Henry Dimbleby (Guardian columnist and co-founder of fast-food chain Leon) - "StART is an inspiring initiative. I urge local authorities and government to hear the voices of local people with real vision who not only care deeply about the borough in which they live, but have the energy, organisation and commitment to make affordable housing a reality, not simply a utopia.
Sona Mahtani (Chief executive, Selby Trust) - "At The Selby Trust, we think the idea of a community land trust is simply brilliant and we support StART's efforts to achieve that fantastic goal in St Ann's. Thankfully we live in a society that acknowledges the power of communities to change lives and work together to achieve the seemingly impossible. It can be done and with enough determination it will be done. StART has the strength and we back it 100%."
Reverend Paul Nicolson - "Public land is being deliberately and systematically sold off into private ownership in a London housing market, where rents and prices are already unaffordable for Tottenham residents. A Community Land Trust puts the land under the community's control and takes it out of the market, and ever rising price of land, "in perpetuity". Therefore, the rents or leases charged to Tottenham residents are for the cost and maintenance of the buildings, not the ever rising price of land. The investors in the land are paid a regular interest but they can never, never sell it.
Local families were being priced out of my parish in the Chiltern Hills in the 1990s in just the same way as is happening now in Tottenham. We also created a community land trust so local families can now continue to live in the Chiltern Hills. The St Ann's Community Land Trust is a much needed project here in Tottenham that is gaining committed public support"
Cal Shaw (Head Teacher, Chestnuts Primary School) - "I have been the Head Teacher at Chestnuts for the last 11 years and in that time I have witnessed the local area (N15) going through significant changes.
Some of these changes have been positive like the development of our local park and others have been negative such as the inflation of house prices. The local house prices have risen to such an extent that our families and children are being focused to leave the area for more affordable accommodation. Families that we have worked with for many years are being forced out. There is a major shortfall in affordable housing for families to rent and also a massive problem with key worker housing which makes it really hard to recruit and retain staff (they simply cannot afford to live in our local community).
I would be keen to see the development of the St Ann's Hospital site as an asset for the whole community, with predominately community and key worker housing. I would like to see some retention of open spaces for children to play and explore. I would also like to see accommodation suitable for families so our children can stay in the area and attend their local school"
Ian Scotchbrook (Head Teacher, South Harringay Junior School) - "At our school we have all become aware of how the demographics of the local area are changing. While changes in a city with London’s dynamic history are to be expected, we have noticed that a significant number of our economically vulnerable families have needed to move away from the area, due to a combination of changes to benefits and the increase in house prices and rent. We feel it a shame that our inclusive area is changing at such a pace, and that our diverse community is being hollowed out. House price increases, and the lack of availability of affordable rental properties, are also having an impact on our staff. It is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit teachers and to retain staff at all levels. We have had several staff report real difficulties in finding decent affordable housing, within commutable distance of our school, and this is forcing them to reconsider their positions. We desperately need more affordable housing in this area if we are to keep our community diverse and inclusive, and to ensure schools and locals services can continue to serve our community well."
Sanford Housing Co-operative
As a co-operative we endorse the StART initiative, which dares to think in a scale appropriate to the scale of housing crisis. We encourage everyone to investigate how new housing developments could serve people by implementing a sustainable ownership. Our tenant-members can testify that the community-oriented model is viable and we hope to see it becoming a part of the St. Ann’s hospital redevelopment.
