It feels like August has been a month of planning. Following a really good meeting with the GLA in early September, I co-ordinated an outline proposal to set up a Community-led housing support hub for London. This is along the lines of the proposal to DCLG for support in rural and coastal areas, that we are still awaiting an announcement on. A roundtable discussion at the GLA is being held next week and this will all then feed into the Mayor’s new housing policy. We are still in conversation with Power to Change about possible funding for other urban support hubs outside London, using a similar model and building on existing local community-led housing networks. A formal submission was also made to the Welsh Government’s expert housing group, working with the Welsh Co-operative Centre on a similar basis. I hope this work will lead to a significant step forward in the provision of direct local technical support for groups right across the UK to develop your cohousing ambitions.
I’ve been working on the brief for expressions of interest to web designers to help us develop a new interactive web platform for UKCN following the fantastic news that the Big Lottery have agreed to fund this. If you know anyone that would like to put in a proposal for this work, please let me know so I can send them the brief.
We’ve arranged our AGM for 25th October in Leeds, followed by an informal gathering, so I hope to meet with some of you there where you can let the Board of Directors know what you would like for the future of UKCN.
We’ve also been discussing our charitable status application with the Charity Commission and are now preparing to submit a revised application to them this autumn based on the feedback.
I’m off for an end of summer trip in my van now, hoping to get some walking in the Lake District, and to come back renewed and refreshed for a busy autumn.
Please let me know if you would like me to visit your Cohousing project or group, or arrange a chat on the phone to find out what you are up to and what you are hoping from UKCN in the future. It would be great to meet more of you.
All the best, Anna