Half my inbox this week is emails from organisations I have a fairly tenuous connection to, wishing me a merry Christmas. What's the point?

Join the Community Land Trust Network team, and help us build the next wave of partnerships and innovations to scale up community ownership and community-led development! www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/who-we-are/v...

Great to bring together some members of the Community Land Trust movement in Abertawe/Swansea today to plot the next five years of our work, including the Senedd elections next year. This wraps up similar gatherings in Leeds, Bridport, Hastings and online.

Exciting work to develop a sustainable financing model for enabling CLT-housing association partnerships in rural areas. If we can crack this it provides a big rural pipeline into the £39bn SAHP. @matthewpennycookmp.bsky.social www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/news-and-eve...

This week @simonforstroud.bsky.social & 20 other MPs made a valiant effort to strengthen Community Right to Buy powers to help communities own rivers, woods & moors Ministers didn't accept the amendments but sought to reassure that CRtB will apply to environmental assets 1/ bsky.app/profile/guys...

Fantastic inspirational event yesterday, Community Development and Planning with @tomchance.bsky.social #ClaudeHendricksonMBE #AnnSkippers and #MichaelBall (Just Space). Great mix of people & lovely to see @danielmadav.bsky.social #RobinBrown and #MyfanwyTaylor #CommunityLedHousingForAll

Part of this v.good series is a paper on how community land ownership and 'civic environmentalism' can drive hyper-local nature recovery, featuring a brilliant Community Land Trust in a detailed case study. www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications...

Imagine the horror if property taxes were actually proportional! Or even progressive. Maybe surveyors might start accounting for this again when valuing properties, and it might affect buyer expectations and values... a man can dream.

From the lands of the Hupa in the west to the Seminole in the south, November is Native American Heritage Month, a time to celebrate and uphold the freedom of all Indigenous people to live in safe and stable homes. The fight for housing justice is also for land and racial justice.

Nus Ghani MP - the Deputy Speaker - moved to the UK as a small child. She has been elected by the voters in Wealden in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2024 More outright racism from the regular GB News & Talk TV contributor Lucy White - who previously called (on GB News) for all Muslims to leave Britain

It seems the government is trying to make be buy Microsoft software... trying to open the policy costings PDF for the budget in Firefox/Evince on my linux laptop... what on earth?

Thanks @jaynekirkhammp.bsky.social for asking @matthewpennycookmp.bsky.social to allocate the English portion of the £100m fine to community led housing. Sadly the govt didn't do this, and so communities continue to lack £ to bring forward new projects. www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=20...

Here's our response to the government announcement that housing developments near railway stations will be given a ‘default yes’...

Please support this! It's not just about rivers/woods/moors. It's also about communities being able to refer to 'environmental' interests in towns/cities, things like buying a building with plans to retrofit it, or create habitats in & around a building...

Which one is more English?

Christmas present for a housing / community ownership enthusiast? A calendar celebrating 40 years after the campaign to save 2 council estates and take them into community ownership. www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4...

'Communities must have the right to own environmental assets' Great letter from @tomchance.bsky.social of the Community Land Trust Network to @miattafahnbulleh.bsky.social, asking her to amend the Devolution Bill to strengthen Community Right to Buy: www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Disappointing that an amendment to add "environmental interests" alongside social and economic was defeated in committee, with @miattafahnbulleh.bsky.social speaking against. At the CLT Network we'll keep working with @guyshrubsole.bsky.social etc to try and win this for genuine community ownership.

As far as I can tell, this policy would deport my Swedish wife (who has a well-paying job and pays thousands in tax each year, not that that should decide these things) because she "took" from society by going on maternity leave when our kids were born.

In an era of populism and discontent, when just 3% of the public trust private developers, why pin your political future on those developers meeting a target they say is not possible, and that would make a marginal - at best - difference to the living costs of voters in 2030?

Every time we see further increases in people living in temporary accommodation I feel it should be pointed out that the big reason is that Local Housing Allowance is capped based on 2023 rents. Rents are rising, so private renting is increasing out of range for families in particular.

Soon to be a big and very positive moment for renters and landlords.

Brilliant news, for The Housing Forum, for Alex, for the housing sector.

They're moving in! Lovely to drop in to catch up with James, his is the first family to move into @yorspace.bsky.social 's almost-finished first co-op housing project. If only @matthewpennycookmp.bsky.social could unlock the funding for many more projects like these...

What role could community ownership play in the Pride in Place programme? It could be a tool in the box, but it could also transform the power of communities to led in their regeneration, and with a regenerative rather than extractive model. www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Yes, let's abolish stamp duty, it's a crap tax in many ways. But it needs to be replaced with a progressive property tax, for which there are a number of options. Just scrapping it would be a windfall for the super wealthy.

Who benefits from the abolition of stamp duty land tax? The first answer: people buying very expensive homes. Average saving for someone buying a £10m+ home is £1.7m. Average saving for someone buying a £250k-£500k home is £5k.

Check out our latest newsletter 🎉 Don't miss out on the opportunity to stay informed and connected with our community. 💬 Explore the full newsletter by following this link: https://mailchi.mp/fd00b1fd5a30/may-newsletter-17994208. 🌟💌 #communityledhousing #peoplepoweredhomes

Remember - for all the talk of building affordable housing, the existence of the right to buy, demolitions and disposals mean we're still making things worse every year.

Some good news. London is meeting legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s "world leading air pollution policies," City Hall announces. The Ultra Low Emissions Zone - and similar policies - really do work.

New towns "must" include community led housing & consider community stewardship, the Taskforce recommends. Now @matthewpennycookmp.bsky.social, needs to ensure his "fuller response" makes it happen, eg CLH expertise in his advisory group & more here: www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/news-and-eve...

🎉 As a member of the #CommunityWealthFund Alliance I am delighted by the news we have secured £175 million for England's doubly disadvantaged neighbourhoods This crucial investment will place power and resources directly in the hands of communities in the areas that need it most.

Looking forward to the further detail on this, having been involved a little in ICON's great work. Devil will be in the detail of how neighbourhood boards function, how the money is deployed to build broad-based inclusive capacity in communities, etc. etc.

When people have the resources & power to shape their own neighbourhoods, magic happens 🌱 🏘️ From youth clubs to music venues, health hubs to repair cafes, affordable housing to urban farms, local groups are transforming spaces — for socially just & ecologically resilient work, life & play.

Fascinating thread, the book would be a great read. I was on the edges of this in the late 90s/early 00s and saw how the more communitarian/commoning strand of techno-utopianism in eg the free software and creative commons movements were eclipsed by libertarianism and capital. Depressing.

Wonderful to visit Chapeltown Cohousing and talk with some of the members/residents during the #NorthernWay Summit in Leeds yesterday, such an inclusive, diverse and neighbourly community.

These videos make me so happy, having played a small part in shifting transport policy in London towards proper segregated infrastructure for cycling, away from a slap of paint on a busy road. Just look at how many people will cycle if you make it safe and pleasant.

Four Million Homes: Free training for social housing residents. Starting next Tuesday – the next round of online training sessions begin! All the sessions are listed below, please let your tenant-members know about the training. 👉 More info and booking here www.fourmillionhomes.org/events/categ...

Great to sit down again with @matthewpennycookmp.bsky.social yesterday to update him on our work on community led housing and CLT stewardship in new towns, as well as finance & other matters. With 100s of communities desperate to build 1,000s of homes, we need action after warm words.

On the same day in the Telegraph:

Of my many conflicting thoughts on Rayner's resignation, one is that we have lost an effective advocate for social housing who listened to the sector and made the case well within government. The other is that stories like hers are too rare in frontline politics.

Following years of work and some recent research relating to racial justice, a workshop with our members this May prompted some deep reflection on our work and approach. We've now written these up and are inviting feedback via an anonymous survey. www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Yorspace, a CLT in York, is close to completing its first co-operative homes, community owned and affordable in perpetuity. The BBC has spoken to some residents excited to move in. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Great to see this, we've been working with Guy and some CLTs in Simon's constituency (and elsewhere) to get Labour MPs to raise the importance of environmental interests in the Community Right to Buy. It would be anomalous to not include the three legs of 'sustainability' in the bill.

If you're worried about sexual violence against women, but only by foreigners. Concerned about asylum seekers in hotels, though not about kids living in temporary accommodation, then that's a bit of a tell, mate.

Lovely to read about a Community Land Trust in the Guardian's country diary... www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Startling figs that show community-led housing can increase affordable housebuilding at scale, if only we can get the conditions right. In this case it just needs the tiniest tweak to the Homes England funding model... @matthewpennycookmp.bsky.social www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Community led housing means having the right houses, in the right place, at the right price.

Thank you @greenjennyjones.bsky.social for joining 12+ MPs and Peers who have already written to ministers urging them to ringfence the £100m housing competition windfall for community led housing. More details on that here: www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/news-and-eve...

In what must be a first, the govt has tripled the size of a National Nature Reserve and included a Community Land Trust as an Approved Body which owns ans is actively buying land within the reserve. www.gov.uk/government/n... cc @guyshrubsole.bsky.social