Housing Innovation Forum

Aster Group leads call to embed CLTs in New Towns

At the inaugural meeting of our new Housing Innovation Forum, leaders from across the housing and political spectrum came together to explore how community land trusts (CLTs) can help meet the UK’s housing targets, while building places people truly want to live.

Jump to Key Policy Recommendations

The government has announced the biggest investment in affordable housing in a generation. Combined with the New Towns initiative, the £39bn injection to the Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) has the potential to change the UK’s housing landscape for the better.

It’s a bold ambition – but experience shows that homes alone don’t build communities. If we focus solely on numbers, we risk creating units, not communities.

Too often, large-scale developments stall due to lack of local buy in. Even when construction begins, essential infrastructure - GP surgeries, schools, leisure centres and roads – lags behind. That delay breeds resistance and fuels the perception that big developments are imposed on communities - not created with or for them.

Roundtable focus: CLTs as a solution

In the first of our Housing Innovation Forum series of roundtables, aimed at finding practical solutions to the sector’s biggest challenges, we explored how CLTs could help New Towns avoid these pitfalls and deliver homes that work for communities at scale.

We brought together housing leaders, parliamentarians and sector experts to consider how embedding CLTs into New Towns and the SAHP could unlock land, foster trust and accelerate delivery.

Our Panel

What holds CLTs back?

Despite their promise, CLTs face persistent challenges in gaining traction. Public understanding remains low, and many still view them as suitable only for small, rural schemes. Some stakeholders worrythat community-led processes may slow down delivery or complicate decision-making. Others question whether CLTs can be scaled up or thrive within urban settings.

Yet these concerns are increasingly out of step with reality. As Tom Chance, CEO of the Community Land Trust Network, noted: "There’s nothing inherently rural about CLTs. Half of CLTs in England are in urban areas, and we’re seeing growing appetite from city-based communities to take the lead in shaping their built environment."

A key theme of the roundtable was how CLTs can move from niche to norm. Our Chief Investment Officer, Amanda Williams stressed the importance of challenging misconceptions: "We need to promote CLTs as a scalable model capable of supporting the delivery of hundreds or even thousands of homes as part of major new developments."

Participants agreed that CLTs’ greatest strength lies in their ability to foster local support - especially in areas where development has traditionally met resistance. Lizzi Collinge MP explained: "Done well, community involvement is a fantastic enabler of housing development. What I've seen is that very early-stage engagement really helps, especially if you're showing that you understand people's real housing needs.”

CLTs as a tool for planning consensus

Planning objections remain a major barrier to new housing. CLTs help overcome this by placing development decisions in the hands of local people - enhancing legitimacy and aligning new housing with broader community needs, from post offices and schools to green spaces and transport.

Steve Watson of Middlemarch added: "These are homes that people want and are fighting for – something you rarely hear about most housebuilding. That community support is invaluable."

CLTs can also de-risk complex sites for housing associations. Community involvement often makes landowners more willing to engage, especially when homes are guaranteed to remain affordable in perpetuity.

Policy changes needed to unlock CLT potential

The group discussed practical ways to embed CLTs in national housing delivery. Key among them is reinstating dedicated revenue funding to help community groups bring forward viable development proposals. This was previously available through the Community Housing Fund, but no comparable scheme exists today.

Tom outlined a proposed revolving investment model: "With upfront investment from a national body, technical support providers like Middlemarch could bring forward oven-ready schemes. Housing associations like Aster then buy these schemes out, recycling the funds into the next project. It’s financially sustainable and scalable."

Another concern raised was the mounting cost of infrastructure, particularly utilities, which can kill small schemes. Amanda urged government to review how infrastructure charges are applied: "In some cases, we’re being asked to cover six-figure sums just for a substation. That’s simply not viable for a 20-home CLT scheme."

Scaling through the New Towns strategy

Recent polling by shows strong public appetite for community-led development, but also deep scepticism about whether New Towns will reflect local needs.

Source: YouGov and the RTPI

As the government prepares to launch its first tranche of New Towns, the roundtable concluded that CLTs must be hardwired into the plans.

Tom Chance reminded the group: "Letchworth Garden City was effectively the UK’s first CLT. There’s a huge opportunity to reconnect with that tradition by putting communities at the heart of new places from day one."

Bjorn Howard, our Group CEO, added: "New Towns will take years to deliver, but CLTs can move now. They’re a practical way to unlock land and community support today, while setting the tone for inclusive development in the future."

The group is calling for each New Town to guarantee delivery of at least 100 CLT-led homes, using Section 106 agreements and SHAP funding to support transfers .

We believe community land trusts could be part of the solution in delivering bold housing numbers. Our hands on experience shows how powerful community led development can be. CLTs empower local people to shape housing that meets their specific needs. In Dartington, Devon, Transition Homes CLT prioritize sustainability. Homes will be energy performance rated a with air source heat pumps and solar PV panels. The Community Land Trust has existed for about fifteen years now to deliver highly energy efficient, sustainable, and affordable housing for local people. So we're really excited that we'll soon have thirty nine families who are desperately in need of affordable housing. You'll be able to move in later next year. Thirty nine families living here, who who potentially for the first time in their lives will have secure long term rental housing, which means that they can really make roots in the community close to where their kids go to school, where they work, where their friends and family are. And they won't have to worry about being victors or how they're gonna afford their rent. These are really energy efficient homes, and it's a really beautiful site. So rarely do you get affordable housing delivered in a beautiful green area of the countryside. And they've hung in there determined to deliver British boats, which will help, like, the council now deliver on its net zero targets. It means that we've got a good good model for when other developers come and say we can't do this and we can't do that. Oh, yes. They can. The Transition Homes CLT at top Topness, who has spent many years, fifteen years or so, trying to get this off the ground, and they've succeeded. It's an excellent scheme, with councilors invested over six hundred thousand pounds of the scheme. Astor Housing Association is helping us deliver it. And had a look today, and it's progressing really well. It's so exciting. We have an affordable housing crisis in the South Hams, very high house prices. So people need affordable places to live. And this is an excellent example of what we want to see. We've got thirty nine homes which are going to be built here, social rent, which is like the holy grail of affordable housing. Partnership working is at the heart of every CLT, from the local community, local council, and landowners to housing associations, developers, and Homes England. We're really happy to be supporting this development at Transition Homes in Dartington. It's a CLT, which, is one of the kinds of schemes that we particularly like to support because it's community driven, and it's absolutely what the community needs. So we really like to see CLT steams be scaled up so it's a bigger percentage of the supply of affordable housing in this country. And we think that's perfectly possible because partnership between a CLT and a housing association means that the CLT finds the site, creates the opportunity, shapes the scheme, and if there's funding, it derisks it preplanning. And the housing association comes in and does what it's really good at, which is it meets all the capital costs, buys the land, builds the scheme, and then manages it. And so there's there's nothing about that that is in any sense limiting the level number of homes that can be built. So a scheme of the six is just as possible, the scheme of some group. There are a number of ways to increase the delivery of CLT homes. Our CLT in Chagford, Devon was one of the first section one zero six CLTs in the UK. This model leverages the existing section one zero six mechanism for delivering affordable homes and has great potential to scale up. Great news is that, the government has announced thirty nine billion pounds worth of capital funding for housing, affordable housing over the next ten years, and most of that's going to be used for social rent. And that's exactly the kind of tenure that CLT projects won't build, social rent. The bit that's missing, which has been there in the past, is what we call revenue fronting, which is which is funding that went to CLTs so that they could, a for pre planning Trust. And that helped to derisk challenging sites so that it was easier for housing associations to get on board. So we'd like to see a return to that prevailing funding. The government has already stipulated that forty percent of all homes built in any new town must be affordable. We'd like to see them state that a portion of those homes must be offered to a CLT, give priority planning approval for CLT applications in new town plans, and ensure that housing associations provide an element of CLT led affordable housing delivery in their use of the newly announced thirty nine billion social and affordable housing program.

Amanda Williams, Aster Group CLT Policy Playbook

Conclusion: Time to act

CLTs deliver more than homes – they build lasting communities. With the right policy support, they can help shape the future of UK housing. Now is the time to act.

Following the discussion, we, along with the Housing Innovation Forum panel, have developed a set of policy recommendations to help CLTs reach their potential and how they can be deployed at scale through New Towns and SAHP.

Key policy recommendations

· Introduce a policy that requires every New Town to deliver at least 100 homes through a community land trust (CLT) established by the existing local community

· The Government should work with stakeholders already involved in delivering CLTs to develop a blueprint for how CLTs can be delivered and scaled across the country

· The Government should organise workshops or roundtables to share best practice and foster collaboration between CLTs, housing associations, and local authorities

· Encourage planning authorities to prioritise CLT-led applications in New Towns and large developments, ensuring delivery of affordable homes through community-led models

· Ringfence SAHP funding for CLT schemes.

Beyond Policy: Enabling Delivery and Growth

To ensure these policy recommendations translate into real-world impact, we must also address the practical mechanisms that support CLT delivery, scale, and sector resilience. The following sections outline critical enablers, ranging from funding innovation to sector collaboration, that will help embed CLTs into mainstream housing delivery and unlock their full potential.

1. Scaling up and innovation

• Funding Models - Investigate revolving loans, equity investments, and other financial mechanisms to support CLT promoters and technical support organisations, making the process more sustainable.

• Embed CLTs in Large-Scale Development - Ensure that CLTs are included from the outset in New Towns and major housing programmes, with clear targets for affordable and community-led housing delivery.

• Monitor and Evaluate Impact - Establish robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks to track the outcomes of CLT-led schemes, sharing lessons learned and best practice across the sector.

2. Delivery

• Revenue Funding - Reinstate dedicated funding to cover pre-planning and de-risking costs. This is vital for enabling new schemes, particularly in complex or high-cost areas.

• Infrastructure Costs - Review the practice of passing utility infrastructure costs onto CLTs. Seek fair and sustainable funding mechanisms to protect scheme viability.

3. Sector collaboration and education

• Develop Sector Guidance - Produce clear, accessible materials explaining the CLT model, its financial mechanisms, and its advantages over traditional development approaches. Share these resources widely with housing associations, local authorities, and policymakers.

• Mainstream Partnerships - Encourage housing associations to consider CLT partnerships as a mainstream option, particularly in urban areas. Facilitate knowledge-sharing and joint ventures to maximise impact.

• Expand Advocacy Networks - Build alliances with local councillors and MPs, providing concise, actionable messages and case studies to support CLTs in parliamentary and planning discussions.