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Oxfordshire Growth Board to meet in person

The Government has confirmed that it will not be extending temporary regulations that permitted the Growth Board to meet virtually during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Therefore, the next meeting of the Growth Board will be held on 8 June 2021 in person at the Vale of White Horse District Council’s offices at 135 Milton Park, Didcot, OX14 4SB.

The meeting will be conducted in a socially distanced manner in line with Government guidance and we intend to live stream the meeting online.

The next meeting of the Growth Board Scrutiny Panel meeting on 1 June will be held virtually as it is not covered by the same regulations. The agenda for the Growth Board meeting can be found here.

Community-led housing festival highlights Growth Deal work

Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal was delighted to be asked to join an online discussion as part of the Thames-Valley Community-Led Housing Festival.

A variety of presentations and interactive discussions explored topics such as affordable housing, building partnerships, sustainable building, retrofitting, diversity in community-led housing, and the impact of the pandemic on how we live in our homes and neighbourhoods.

The Growth Deal presentation focused on research into scaling-up community-led housing in Oxfordshire conducted for the Growth Deal by the Collaborative Housing Hub.

CLH can include cohousing schemes, housing cooperatives and community land trusts (CLT’s).

The sector, while small, is growing with nearly 7,000 CLT homes to be built or refurbished over the next 5 years (source).

Oxfordshire already has some examples of community-led housing – Stonesfield CLT is one of the oldest community land trusts in the UK, owning and managing 15 homes in West Oxfordshire.

But delivering CLH can be long and complex with a number of challenges to overcome.

The presentation is available here and the report can be accessed here.

All presentations and recordings of the festival will be available in due course on the Collaborative Housing Hub website.