The power of CLTs

There are better national resources for answering your general CLT questions than this web site.  The power of a Community Land Trust lies in the very good legal framework set up by government and the national CLT movement.  There is also the power of that 'C' word - Community.  Since 2008 the UK has tried to downsize "big government" and move responsibility and opportunity for decision-making to a local level - where communities choose to do so.  The mechanism provided for this is the Localism Act of 2011.  Many communities around the UK have taken advantage of this opportunity and have been successfully doing it for themselves for some time.  CLTs in Wiltshire started with Wilton.  In 2026 we have 6 CLTs in Wiltshire. The English national movement has more than 350 active CLTs.

to fix broken housing provision

Our UK system for housing provision is broken - and has been so since at least 2008.  This includes social housing provision, open market housing, the housing rental market and local support for self-build housing - all broken.  There is little need to prove this point, it is a self-evident concept that was confirmed in reality by the June 2018 report from the Institute of Public Policy Research, Baxter D and Murphy L (2108) A new rural settlement: Fixing the affordable housing crisis in rural England, IPPR. http://www.ippr.org/research/publications/a-new-rural-settlement
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Broken markets are susceptible to ruthless exploitation, particularly where the urban housing provision policy models do not adequately deal with real rural housing needs.  In 2026 the growing impact of this is evident almost everywhere.  Poor 'cookie cutter' designs, less energy efficient than they should be.  Small building footprints laid out to maximise land profit, not solar gain.  Token landscaping and planting.  It has been going on for years.  CLTs can't change the market - but they can change your community! 

Phil Spencer's Channel 4 programme, 'Find Me a Home', introduced Community Land Trusts to his audience in a July 2017 episode which had a slightly different format from the usual 'Location, Location, Location' that we perhaps know well.  The programme focussed on two families who found themselves in the unaffordability trap highlighted in the IPPR report.  You probably won't want to read the whole IPPR report, so the summary is here.