Community-led housing fund

Our community-led housing fund provides revenue and capital funding to support the development of community-led affordable housing across the New Forest area.

Community-led housing schemes take many forms. They are characterised by the leading and lasting role that communities play in addressing local housing needs. Types of community-led housing include:

Community Land Trusts (CLTs)
co-operative housing
co-housing
group or community self-builds
empty property projects
town, parish or special interest group-led housing development projects.

Community-led housing can be geographically based, for example with a parish, or thematically based, for example commoners housing.

Find out more about community-led and rural affordable housing.

Revenue grant funding

Revenue grant funding is available to support community-led housing proposals. This helps them to achieve three key project stages:

Initial group formation and training - up to £5,000.
Project and group development - up to £10,000.
Site-related technical, financial and project delivery - up to £35,000.

Applications for stage three assistance will only be considered once a community group has been formally and legally constituted.

For more information on revenue assistance, download the document below:

Community-led housing fund guide (PDF, 104 KB)

Apply for revenue grant funding (PDF, 139 KB)

Capital grant funding

Where a community-led scheme has reached the build stage, capital funding is available to enable small-scale development. This applies where public subsidy is otherwise not available. Funding is available up to £40,000 per unit to a maximum of £120,000 per project.

On large schemes, a maximum of £120,000 capital assistance is available in the absence of other public grant funding, or where joint funding is necessary and supported by Homes England.

Capital funding will only be allocated to approved legal bodies with a formally adopted constitution.

For more information on capital assistance, download the document below:

Community-led housing fund guide (PDF, 104 KB)

Apply for community-led housing fund capital assistance (PDF, 134 KB)