The Nationwide Foundation is giving new funding of £40,000 to the Wales Co-operative Centre, which will use it to significantly increase the number of housing co-operatives providing affordable homes across Wales. This funding will be used to support 26 co-operative groups as they become established over the next two years.
Co-operative housing is community-led, whereby residents democratically control and manage their homes. The Wales Co-operative Centre has identified appetite for more co-operative housing in Wales and it is a form of housing that can be suitable for ‘reluctant renters’; people who are currently priced out of the owner-occupied sector and who are unable to access social housing.
Using the new funding from the Nationwide Foundation and additional money from the Welsh Government, Wales Co-operative Centre will engage experts to work with local co-operative housing projects on community development, as well as issues around legal, finance and business organisational models, leading to these co-operatives being robust and fully operational.
The Nationwide Foundation is an independent charitable funder which has a vision for everyone in the UK to have access to a decent home which they can afford. One of the ways it is doing this is by supporting alternative, scalable models which provide affordable homes. The Nationwide Foundation works with charitable organisations around the UK and this project is the first of the current strategy to be awarded in Wales.
Leigh Pearce, Nationwide Foundation’s Interim Chief Executive, said: “We are always on the look-out for innovative and viable alternative models for housing which create decent affordable homes. As a result of this funding to Wales Co-operative Centre, we expect to see a long-term increase in the number of affordable co-operative homes in Wales. We welcome the recognition that the Welsh Government has already given to this scalable model of housing.”