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29
Jul
New initiative to tackle affordable housing crisis in Masham area
A new organisation in Masham has been established to tackle the shortage of affordable housing in the area.
Mashamshire Community Land Trust Ltd, which held its first board meeting this week, has been set up primarily to buy land and build housing that will remain in community ownership permanently.
The housing, which the trust says will be "genuinely affordable", will be available only to local residents, or those with local connections, in Masham and the surrounding villages.
Other objectives of the charity include the provision of community-owned facilities, local energy schemes, and regeneration to alleviate financial hardship.
Councillor Felicity Cunliffe-Lister, the chair of the trust, said:
We all know that there is a shortage of genuinely affordable housing in the local area. The younger generation are forced to move away in order to find somewhere they can afford to live, and older residents are not able to downsize and remain within their community. New houses might be built, but there is nothing to prevent them being the next second home.
The Mashamshire Community Land Trust will create homes that locals can afford to live in, which will also be assets owned and controlled by locals.
The parishes surrounding Masham are the most deprived in the whole of North Yorkshire in terms of the financial and physical barriers to accessing housing and local services.
According to government data, the Masham area is more deprived in terms of access to housing and services than 98% of neighbourhoods in England.
The trust has already submitted a bid to buy the redundant school at Kell Bank, between Healey and Fearby. It is owned by the Diocese of Leeds, which has not accepted the offer as it is waiting for its application to convert the building into housing to be approved, increasing the value of the land.
The trust is also actively looking for other sites in Masham and the surrounding area that might be suitable for community housing. Sites that lend themselves well would be brownfield or those just on the outskirts of a settlement.
Residents are also encouraged to join the trust as a member.
The costs of setting up the trust have been met by North Yorkshire Council through the Community Led Housing Fund – funded by the second homes council tax premium – which will also support the costs of feasibility and development work of build projects. Further funding will be met from a mix of grants, loans and community share offers.
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