Gŵyr Community Land Trust

Our Vision:
A world where communities are empowered to re-imagine their surroundings, for themselves and generations to come.

Our Mission:
Creating environments for resilient communities to thrive.

Gŵyr Community Land Trust was set up by local residents to find a solution to the housing crisis in and around Gower. All housing will be genuinely affordable, available for local people in housing need, high-quality, sustainable and suitable for future generations. GCLT believes that housing which is initiated, designed and built by the community will create homes which improve local areas for everyone. GCLT are inspired by the examples of communities in England and Scotland where thousands of new permanently affordable homes, mainly in rural areas, have been developed by CLTs.

The CLT membership is made up of people who live and/or work in the local community, have strong local connections and are committed to improving the area for everyone, working alongside support organisation Cwmpas’ Communities Creating Homes team and a committed team of external professionals.

Genuinely Affordable

Our houses will be affordable for local people forever. There is a huge need for affordable housing on Gower, to enable a broader range of households to live here. We will use a flexible shared ownership model to ensure that the homes are affordable, even after re-sale. Our cutting-edge model sets S.O rents and sale prices at a level which is genuinely affordable for people who work locally, even those in low paid but essential jobs.

Community-Led and Community-Built

We will use a community-led approach which will be driven by local people, members and residents. All members of Gŵyr CLT live and work locally and are themselves in housing need. We will work with our local community to find a site, concept and design which serves everyone. We will carry out50% of the construction process ourselves, allowing residents to acquire sweat equity, enabling people without significant capital to get onto the housing ladder.

Designed For People Not Profit

We will use a cohousing design to create a strong, supportive, healthy and resilient community. We will prioritise shared open spaces over large private gardens, pedestrians over cars and provide shared facilities. We believe resilience comes through strong networks of support and we aim to actively encourage this through design, how we live and how we organise. We will create a community which is multi-generational and allows us to support each other through all stages of life, from young children to the elderly. The design will be interwoven with biodiverse, wild spaces, working with the natural environment rather than against it.

Low Impact Living

We will create zero-carbon homes which enable truly sustainable lifestyles. We rapidly need to reduce the carbon emissions of our buildings, and this is not happening quickly enough. Through the design and materials our houses are built from; how we supply our energy and water; growing our own food on site; and setting aside spaces for biodiversity and carbon capture, we will aim to bring our environmental footprint to a level where the people and planet can thrive.

Replicable

We will create a new and successful model for sustainable, community-led housing in Wales. Utilising surplus from Shared Ownership rents along with our extensive experience to bring forward more community owned housing projects in the Gower & Gower fringe areas and support other groups to establish high quality, affordable housing projects in their own areas. We aim to become a blueprint for other community-based groups, councils and organisations wishing to pursue community-led housing. We will open-source all of our learning and all aspects of our model, so that we can push forward the growth of community-led housing across Wales and the UK.