Enabling community-led housing

This project investigated the factors that enabled or constrained community-led housing development in England with a view to supporting the growth of the sector. The study investigated the local and national conditions which enabled community-led housing development and considered the role of actors operating within these contexts to promote community-led housing approaches. In particular, this thesis investigated the emergence of regional organisations that provide support for community-led housing to the public, known as enabling hubs. The analysis is based on a comparative qualitative study of three regions in England that have seen significant growth in community-led housing, supported by a set of interviews with national actors. The thesis is based on a collaborative award, in partnership with Wessex Community Assets. Using a theoretical framework grounded in new institutionalist theory, the thesis presents a connected macro-scale and meso-scale analysis of the community-led housing sector in England. The findings discuss the different factors which form the local institutional contexts in which community- led housing might operate and their relationship to the wider national institutional context. The findings further evidence the mechanisms through which actors can manipulate their contexts to support community-led housing development. The thesis has also generated data concerning the implementation of the enabling hub concept for the first time. It found that the implementation of the enabling hub programme did not result in the full actualisation of an established network of regenerative and financially self-sustaining organisations able to extensively support community-led housing projects. However, the conceptual and institutional groundwork for such services has been established, for actors to continue to utilise, adapt and strengthen where possible.