NCLT objectives

Our overriding objective is to facilitate the small-scale development of affordable homes by the community for the community in the Nadder Valley area.

The work we do is evidence-led, informed by what the local community tells us it wants in terms of affordable homes and what our research tells us is a demonstrable need. By local community we mean those living and/or working in the area and/or have a local connection.

Affordable homes on their own will not meet the aspirations of the community we aim to serve. We will work to ensure that the infrastructure and facilities that help communities to function effectively are in place too.

We will support initiatives that provide opportunities for training and work. These are key to keeping communities vibrant and sustainable.

To ensure that the Nadder Valley area remains a beautiful place for residents and workers we will do all we can to promote the conservation, protection and improvement of the physical and natural environment.

Within the unavoidable constraints of what can be afforded for specific schemes at the time, we aspire through the affordable homes we secure for the community to:

• Commit to high standards of build quality, creating homes that will last the test of time and have an enduring value to the community;

• Create homes with the smallest possible carbon footprint;

• Commit to promoting place-making, having regard to the acknowledged vernacular building styles which emphasise the distinctiveness of the local area and the sense of local community;

• Extend opportunities for trades people and other service providers.

How we began

What started as a casual meeting in a Tisbury resident’s dining room blossomed into a fully functioning Community Land Trust in April 2019, when Nadder Community Land Trust Ltd., was created. We now have over 250 members drawn from Tisbury and the surrounding villages, and a volunteer board and steering group. We do not employ any permanent paid staff and rely on the generosity of our volunteers.

Community Land Trusts are set up and run by ordinary people to develop and manage affordable homes within their communities. The goal is long term, ensuring that this new housing remains in community ownership and that it remains genuinely based on the community’s need and preferences.

Community Land Trusts were developed to be a potential vehicle for creating more housing and community assets for people with a local connection and the Tisbury and West Tisbury Neighbourhood Plan "TisPlan" has supportive policies to enable this new and exciting type of development.

TisPlan has confirmed that there is a shortage of housing at the more affordable end of the market. The Neighbourhood Plan has a number of supportive policies to enable this new and exciting type of development.

Progress to date

At our inaugural public meeting in September 2018 supporters were encouraged to help in any way they felt able and our Steering Group settled down to a core of about nine volunteers and converted to become NCLT’s first Board of Trustees following incorporation in April 2019. We now have over 250 members and an elected board.

Our legal status as a Community Benefit Society with charitable status, incorporated under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, means that we are a not for profit organisation and any assets we acquire become the property of the Nadder community. It also means that we are governed by a rigorous set of rules approved by the Financial Conduct Authority which require that all our work must be in pursuit of our charitable objects.

Read more about our work to date in our Annual Reports and minutes on our Resources page.

Benefits of a CLT

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are a form of community-led housing, set up and run by ordinary people to develop and manage homes as well as other assets important to that community, like community enterprises, food growing or workspaces. CLTs act as long-term stewards of housing, ensuring that it remains genuinely affordable, based on what people actually earn in their area, not just for now but for every future occupier.

There are now 255 legally incorporated Community Land Trusts in England and Wales, and including new groups forming the number is over 300 CLTs in England and Wales, and the sector has grown six-fold in the last six years and over 17,000 people are members of CLTs. The largest Community Land Trusts have over 1000 members each. Community Land Trusts have developed 935 permanently affordable homes to date and are working to develop an additional 16,000 homes in the next few years.

The CLT model itself is an import from the United States, where CLTs are widely recognised as a method of delivering permanently affordable housing. There is also an emerging CLT movement in Belgium, France, Italy and Australia.

CLT basics

CLTs are not a legal form in themselves (like a Company). However, CLTs are defined in law so there are certain things that a CLT must be and do:

• A CLT must be set up to benefit a defined community;

• A CLT must be not-for-private-profit. This means that they can, and should, make a surplus as a community business, but that surplus must be used to benefit the community;

• Local people living and working in the community must have the opportunity to join the CLT as members;

• Those members control the CLT (usually through a board being elected from the membership).