Annual report - December 2006
2006 has been a year of steady progress with projects and strategies begun in 2005:
- Completion of the Community controlled housing strategy, developed with the NFTMOs and the Co-operative Housing Group.
- Continuing joint working with the NFTMOs.
- Assimilating the results of the programme of engagement with our members.
...as well as making a number of submissions to various bodies:
- Consultation on the future of Local Strategic Partnerships.
- Creating Sustainable Communities Policy Commission.
- National Housing Federation’s Tenant Involvement Commission.
- DCLG’s consultation From Decent Homes to Sustainable Communities.
- House of Commons committee inquiry into the future of rented and affordable housing.
...while continuing to provide advice and support to our members.
With the Community controlled housing strategy completed, CCH is working with NFTMO and the Co-operative Housing Group to arrange publication and a significant launch event.
CCH are continuing the policy of joint working with NFTMOs in areas where it delivers benefits for both organisation’s members. Currently we share the cost, and the content, of a joint newsletter, and planning of a joint conference, scheduled for 6th to 8th June 2007 in Blackpool is underway. We have also met with a new housing co-op group set up in Scotland, and have arranged a meeting with the Housing Corporation to discuss housing co-op regulation.
Following the engagement programme with our members carried out in 2005, CCH has had to assimilate the results, and consider how we can best respond. There is a recognition that we need to improve contact with our members. In this way we can ensure that CCH continues to represent the interests and hopes of our members. However, we also need to make them more aware of the importance to them of the strategic policy making that we are so often involved with, the importance of new models of community control to our sector, and of the necessary limitations on what an organisation dependent on volunteers can do.
It is important that CCH continues to make submissions wherever it can. Housing Co-operatives have a great deal to offer, and a proven track record, across a range of policy issues. It is crucial that people are reminded about (or perhaps learn of) the existence and achievements of community controlled housing. New models such as Community Land Trusts, and the Community Gateway model (CGM) offer a real hope of expanding the community controlled sector. With a CGM in Preston, another on the way in Watford, and others currently balloting their tenants, these are exciting times for community controlled housing.
CCH is producing a position paper on Choice based Lettings schemes for the guidance of housing co-operatives. It will advise them what information they will need before their members can make an informed decision about joining a CBL scheme in their area.
