The report sets out the findings of a fifteen month research project commissioned by CDS Co-operatives and carried out by a team of researchers from the New Economics Foundation.  The research project was jointly funded by CDS Co-operatives and the Housing Corporation.  The researchers interviewed key workers, employers and housing providers in London and the South West to analyse their housing needs and aspirations.  The research brief was, on the basis of robust research information, to consider whether or not a co-operative and mutual form of housing tenure could make a unique contribution to the housing crisis facing key workers and others in high cost areas.

It concludes that combining a shared equity co-operative, which enables members to have an equity stake in their home, with a community land trust that takes land out of the market and holds it in trust to provide affordable housing for current and future generations, is a robust model that is attractive and urgently needs to be applied to solve the dire lack of low-cost key worker housing.

Key elements of the CDS model

• Unlike shared ownership, any free land or other public subsidy is locked in and preserved for future generations

• The proposed structure is geared to give residents access to lower corporate mortgage rates than those available to individual owner occupiers
• Monthly payments are flexible and based on an affordable percentage of a key worker’s income
• The model is designed to be attractive to pension funds, life assurance companies and other institutional investors because it enables the open market value of residential property to be used as security for investment
• Residents will be able to increase their equity stake or, if need be, decrease it
• It is flexible: an assignable lease ensures residents can move in or depart quickly and easily

To download a PDF copy of the report please click here or for the 6 page summary leaflet please click here