Skip Navigation

Communicating with residents and applicants

The need for community engagement is discussed as part of the process of forming the CLT. Your housing allocation policy is also part of your strategy for identifying and meeting priority needs by making the availability of your homes known to all those who might benefit from them in your defined locality.

When your scheme is complete and the first residents have been selected and have moved in, you may need to consider how a long term relationship is to be built with the community even if the number of homes becoming available from re-letting or re-sales is quite small. If local people lose interest once the scheme is built, the work of keeping the CLT going may fall heavily on a few individuals. You may well also want to know what the unmet demand for local affordable housing is in case there is a need for another scheme. You will also want your residents to identify with the aims of the CLT so that they look after their homes and their surroundings and integrate well into the community.

A briefly stated strategy would help to deal with these issues covering:

  • annual reporting to residents and the community
  • opening membership and securing a wider membership base beyond the Board
  • creating a place on the Board for an elected residents’ representative (or having a resident as an observer)
  • reduced frequency of meetings if appropriate
  • recruiting particular skills to the Board; and sharing the work of running the CLT between a number of people
  • maintaining a list of those in need of affordable homes
  • considering meeting other community needs besides affordable housing
  • potentially some sort of annual community event (which might be a CLT barbecue but could just involve attending the parish council meeting to present a report)

The Buckland Newton CPT website has a particularly good FAQ for its residents, applicants and interested parties which details the roles, responsibilities and issues relating to the management of their properties and the trust itself.