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.