Lewisham Council will consider land at nil cost for co-ops and community land trusts where half the homes are social rent. Forum first, funding options in March 2027.

Lewisham Council is prepared to hand over land for free, or below its market value, to housing co-operatives and community land trusts, provided at least half the homes are for social rent. That is the clearest commitment in a report Mayor and Cabinet noted on Wednesday 7 October, which starts work on a Community-Led Housing and Small Registered Providers delivery strategy (Lewisham Council, report to Mayor and Cabinet, 7 October 2026).

The decision is subject to call-in until Friday 16 October (decision record).

There is no strategy document yet. The Cabinet was asked only to note that officers are writing one. The report sets out what it will contain and how the council intends to work with small housing bodies, which it says have been held back by “access to land, development finance, technical capacity, and organisational resilience”.

What the council has agreed to do

The report lists the work that follows the Cabinet’s agreement:

  • set up a Community-Led Housing and Small Registered Provider Forum, with a single point of contact at the council
  • run a stakeholder engagement programme with housing groups, small providers, lenders and support agencies
  • look for sites, both council-owned and privately owned, that could suit community-led schemes
  • write an “enabling framework” for assessing proposals and partnership working
  • explore a Disposals Policy setting consistent terms for transferring land to community-led and small provider schemes
  • explore Local Development Orders, which grant planning consent for suitable sites in advance
  • consider community land trusts and other “asset-locked” ownership models that keep homes affordable permanently

The 50% social rent test

The council says its ability to give land away has “become increasingly constrained” by its finances and by its legal duty to get best value for public assets. Even so, the report states that the council “is prepared to consider the transfer of land at below-market or nil value where a scheme can demonstrate a proportion of social rent delivery, at 50% or higher”, assessed against the social value generated and subject to the council’s constitution.

That is a threshold, not a guarantee. Any actual land transfer, grant or loan will need its own separate approval.

No money yet

The report is candid that nothing is funded beyond officer time. It says “there are currently no identified funding sources” for running the forum and delivering the strategy. Writing the strategy will come out of existing budgets; delivering it “will require additional funding”.

Officers want to secure:

  • a fixed-term Development Officer to lead engagement, find sites and run surveys
  • a consultancy fund for planning, viability, legal and governance advice
  • money to cover pre-application planning discussions

Grants, loans, loan underwriting and land value arrangements will all be looked at. Officers expect to bring a report on financial options back to Mayor and Cabinet in March 2027.

Why Lewisham thinks it can do this

The report leans on the borough’s record. Lewisham’s self-build programmes of the 1970s and 1980s gave households on the waiting list sites, materials and council-backed mortgages to build their own homes. Walters Way in Honor Oak Park, built on the architect Walter Segal’s timber-frame method and referred to in the report as Walter Segal Way, is the best known result. Nubia Way in Downham followed in the 1990s, built by Fusions Jameen, London’s first Black housing co-operative, and completed between 1994 and 1997.

The report cites four more recent schemes:

Bar chart of homes completed by the four recent community-led schemes cited in Lewisham Council's report: RUSS at Church Grove, Ladywell, 36 homes in 2024; Deptford Ragged Trust at Frankham Street, 33 homes in 2024; London Community Land Trust at Brasted Close, Sydenham, 11 homes in 2023; Birnbeck Housing Association at Stanstead Road, Forest Hill, 4 homes in 2021.
Four schemes, 84 homes. Chart by Lewisham News.
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Scheme Who built it Homes Finished
Church Grove, Ladywell Rural Urban Synthesis Society (RUSS), self-build, council site 36 February 2024
Frankham Street, Deptford The Deptford Ragged Trust with J49, with the council’s Section 106 money 33, all social rent June 2024
Brasted Close, Sydenham London Community Land Trust and Lewisham Citizens, former garage site transferred at nil cost 11, discounted market sale January 2023
Stanstead Road, Forest Hill Birnbeck Housing Association, supported homes for autistic young adults 4 May 2021

Church Grove took a long time. The council invited interest in May 2013, appointed RUSS in 2015, and planning permission came in December 2018. The 36 homes were completed in February 2024. Brasted Close is the model the report points to for land: the council transferred the plot for nothing because that “was critical to the financial viability of the scheme”, and the homes are priced against local median incomes in perpetuity. Frankham Street rehoused 29 households from nightly-paid temporary accommodation.

What it means for you

  • If you are in a housing co-op, a community land trust or a small housing association: the forum is the door. Nothing opens until it is formally set up, but the report commits the council to a single point of contact and a published framework for assessing proposals.
  • If you want to self-build: the Church Grove route (council site, enabling developer, long wait) is the only recent precedent. The report does not announce any new sites.
  • If you are on the housing register: the test for free land is 50% social rent or more. Schemes that meet it would add social homes, but the report names no sites and no numbers.
  • Council tax payers: no new spending has been approved. The March 2027 report will say what financial support, if any, the council offers.
  • Planning: Local Development Orders would mean some community-led sites get consent in advance. Our planning applications page covers how to track applications in the meantime.

The council’s wider housing position is set out in its own performance report, covered in our tenant satisfaction story, and its ten-year development partnership with Hill is in our £1.5bn housing partner report.

Sources