Co-operative Housing
Mike Hedges MS
Wales and the rest of Great Britain has not shown the same enthusiasm for Co-operative housing as the rest of the world. Why is Co-operative housing so popular in places as diverse as New York City and Scandinavia but has failed to become a standard form of accommodation in Wales and the rest of Great Britain. John Lennon lived in the Dakota building a Co-operative apartment building in Manhattan.
One of the earliest developments of Co-operative housing came with the tenant co-partnership movement in the early 1900s. Starting in 1901 with the founding of Ealing Tenants Ltd, the first tenant co-partnership Co-operative was built at Brentham Garden, Ealing; the name showing the close alliance to the garden city movement.
Other examples of co-partnership housing are at Hampstead Garden Suburb, now one of the most expensive parts of London, and Letchworth Garden City. The development of co-partnership housing was interrupted by the First World War. After the war legislation gave the co-partnership movement the same access to government aid as council housing, but in the post war world, most councils chose to build for themselves by developing council housing.
The co-partnership movement slowly failed because it was funded by a mix of funding from tenants and other investors, the involvement of the latter creating pressure for the sale of the homes,
From the end of the Second World War to the middle of 1970s, UK public housing policy was dominated by the encouragement of individual home ownership through tax relief on mortgage interest and the creation of a large council housing estates which at its peak in the 1970s provided homes for 31.5% of the population. By 2009 only approximately 0.6% of people were living in homes owned or managed by a Co-operative or mutual housing organisation.
A third wave of Co-operative housing development began in the 1960s with the development of Co-ownership housing. This was genuine Co-operative ownership and management by residents who paid a monthly rental to meet the cost of servicing the mortgage borrowed by the Co-operative to build their homes. It was made affordable by government tax relief on the mortgage loan.
Over 40,000 co-ownership homes were built, but most co-ownership societies were wound-up in the early 1980s when the Conservative government led by prime minister Margaret Thatcher gave members the right to wind-up their society and own their own homes individually; this policy often generating windfall gains for members who were fortunate enough to be residents at the time.
The small fourth wave of UK housing Co-operatives are young compared to other European countries. They were founded in the 1970s and 1980s with government assistance programs designed to provide homes for low- and mid-income families by not-for-profit housing associations some of which was used to create housing Co-operatives. In addition, a small group of housing Co-operatives have developed without government assistance using member loans and mortgages to raise funds and growth. The political agenda changed in the 1990s favouring large-scale housing associations as the social housing delivery mechanism over housing Co-operatives. For this reason, the development of new housing Co-operatives practically ceased in the 1990s, although a small number of homes continue to be developed by dedicated Co-operative housing service agencies and registered providers.
In 2014 we saw the opening of the Edinburgh Student Housing Co-operative providing affordable housing for the Co-operative’s 106 student members. The Co-operative manages two neighbouring properties at Wright’s Houses in Edinburgh. There are two other operating student housing Co-operatives in Birmingham and Sheffield.
In 2012 the Welsh Government announced that it wanted to see homes built in Wales on a Co-operative model. This started the Wales Co-operative housing project managed by the Wales Co-operative centre and funded by the Welsh Government and the Nationwide foundation.
The Wales Co-operative Housing Project has helped develop 137 Co-operative homes in 6 different local authority areas with 2 of the schemes that have been supported winning awards and has:
• Supported existing Co-operative and community-led schemes across the country
• Upskilled more than 250 people on how to successfully run a housing Co-op
• Identified Co-operative/community-led housing champions across the housing sector
• Developed an online toolkit
• Helped local authorities develop policies and resources to grow and support the demand for Co-operative and community-led housing.
Whilst many of us consider the development of Co-op housing as a socialist or left-wing idea it is effectively apolitical. Co-operative housing has successfully developed in North America, Scandinavia, and Western Europe but to a much smaller extent in Britain.
Where it has worked it has been through legislative action such as New York and Spain or financial support as in Sweden and Norway.
If we want to develop large scale Co-operative housing, then we need the political will to do so but also an understanding on the part of those unable to access accommodation through traditional means that co-operative can provide an affordable opportunity in what is going to be an increasing difficult period ahead. That understanding can be made clear in the way in which citizenship is delivered through our new National Curriculum. The importance of the option presented by co-operative forms of tenure will require knowledge of developments far beyond our shores.
Mike Hedges is the labour and Co-op member for Swansea East