Leeds Community Homes: Putting power in residents’ hands

Founded in 2015, Leeds Community Homes (LCH) was set up to support the creation of community‑led housing in and around the city.

“It was a coming together of people involved in the voluntary housing sector. We wanted something to make the creation of new community-led housing easier and quicker,” said Jimm Reed, LCH Director and CEO. 

The organisation is a community benefit society (CBS) and Jimm explained why they chose this structure: “It was important that we were going to be working for the benefit of our members – those interested in supporting community‑led homes.”

“Because a CBS is asset locked, people see that if they invest in and support it, it’s a long‑term benefit that’s not going to be eroded.” 

Since its inception, Leeds Community Homes has purchased eight properties, and will be buying another eight later in 2024. They’re all part of the Climate Innovation District – an environmentally passive housing development in a former industrial area in the south of Leeds. 

“It has been built with environmental design and community elements to it. As it’s a new build, as part of the planning, the developer had to provide affordable housing, which they allocated to us,” Jimm explained. 

LCH’s properties on the scheme are one and two bedroomed flats, with a mixture of rent and shared ownership. Shared owners buy a proportion of the flat and rent the rest. “This makes properties more accessible – it’s great for first time buyers,” said Jimm. 

“It’s important because accessibility is a major social problem. When you look at social deprivation and the problems that affect cities, housing is a key factor and access to quality homes is a massive factor.

“We have five properties that are currently let to tenants and we’re in the process of selling the other three. People started living in them in March 2024. The project took a long time to come to fruition, as the Grenfell fire happened and they had to re‑design twice.” 

To raise the capital to purchase the flats, LCH originally held a large community share offer in 2016-17 with a target of £360,000 to add to the loan finance they also used to buy the properties. 

They successfully reached their target, which included £100,000 in equity match investment from the Community Shares Booster Fund. 

“It also made us look really credible as a start‑up organisation with no track record. It gave us credibility and great publicity. It encouraged people to invest.”

All LCH residents are automatically members of the CBS, which has investor members too. “We have just under 300 members, most of whom are investors,” said Jimm. “Around two thirds of these are local people from in and around Leeds who invested because they liked the idea of it. 

“With our scheme, residents have an active say in how the property is managed – in how to manage the communal spaces, gardens, ground rent and even who we are going to pay to maintain things.

“We want to do more than just provide affordable homes. We want to have community involvement in housing. Nearly all housing is originated and owned by people who have no long-term interest or knowledge of the community – faceless developers, or even big housing associations with no local links.”

“Community involvement in places like Chapeltown Cohousing in Leeds have had massively positive outcomes for young people growing up. And older people avoid being isolated in the community too.” 

Although it took some time for LCH’s initial plans to come to fruition, it has enabled them to develop the organisation and become the official Community Led Housing Enabler for West and South Yorkshire. 

“As an enabler, we support groups and organisations who want to create community‑led housing. We use our expertise to help them set up and get funding. We were the first of a number of nationwide hubs to be established – and the model the other hubs followed,” Jimm said. 

“We’ve worked with organisations all across the UK, supporting them and people see LCH as a torch bearer for the movement. We’re working with lots of groups in Yorkshire to create community housing – and that was made possible by the share offer that Co‑operatives UK and the Booster Fund supported.”

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Leeds Community Homes – Website | Facebook | X | Instagram | YouTube