Help give a family a home in East Oxford this Xmas

Aim

Help Oxfordshire Community Land Trust raise £4.5k to provide a permanently-affordable home in our neighbourhood for a family in need.

Following an extremely generous donation of a 3-bedroom house in St Clement's Ward, East Oxford, Oxfordshire Community Land Trust (OCLT) is preparing to let the property at permanently affordable rents to members of the local community. But to carry out the necessary renovations to make this as comfortable a home as it can be, we need your help! 

The total estimated cost of the refurbishment – including repainting, and updating the heating system and electrics – is £4,500. As a small, non-profit, community benefit society almost entirely run by volunteers, our funds are very limited. So this is where we hope you, the wider community, can step in. If we receive a £20 donation from just 225 people, we’ll achieve our target.

By contributing to this project, you will be helping us take one step closer to our goal: to make sure that everyone in Oxfordshire has access to decent, affordable housing.

Design: Gabby Murray

FAQs

Where is the property?

The house is in St Clement's Ward, East Oxford. To protect the privacy of future tenants, we’re unable to say exactly where the property is. What we can say is that it’s just a 20-minute walk from central Oxford, and close to both South Park and Cowley Road.

Was the property really donated to you?

Yes! We too were bowled over by the generosity of the current owner. But they’re not alone; we’re in discussions with other property owners who also plan to donate their house to OCLT. We’re also talking to a house owner about buying his home off market at a discount that would enable us to let it affordably. Many homeowners wish to leave their homes to their children, and this approach provides a way for relatively wealthy people to share some of their equity with the land trust without giving us all of it. If you’d be interested in joining their pledge to make decent, affordable housing available to everyone in Oxfordshire, please email us at [email protected].

When do you plan to let the property?

We plan to finish the refurbishment by spring 2024. We intend to let the property as soon as works have been completed.

Who will live in the property?

We will let the property to a family in housing need with a connection to the local area. We will begin looking for a tenant later this month or early next year; in order to apply to rent the property, prospective tenants must be members of the Land Trust (signing up costs just £1 and takes about 1 minute).

What works do you need to do to the property to get it ready for letting?

The house was built in the early 1990s so it needs some redecorating and updating to make it as comfortable as it can be for our new tenants. We need to remove a gas fireplace, buy a new electric wall radiator, ensure that light fittings and sockets are up to date, tidy up the garden, and reseal and paint various areas. We also need to pay for more boring but essential things like insurance and electrical and gas safety certificates.

What do you mean by “affordable rents”?

The rent we charge will initially be set at Local Housing Allowance (currently £1100 per month – about 60-70% of market rents), and will only ever rise by increments permitted by the social housing regulator, if at all. Whenever we re-let the property, the rent will once again be set at Local Housing Allowance.

How can you ensure that the house will be let permanently at an affordable rent?

We (OCLT) have an “asset lock”; this ensures that our assets – including any residential property we own – can never be sold on the open market or enter into private hands, and must always be managed in a way that benefits the wider community.

Who is Oxfordshire Community Land Trust?

Oxfordshire Community Land Trust (OCLT) is a community benefit society run by its members. Membership is open to anyone and costs only £1. Our purpose is to acquire land and other assets so that they can be put to use in ways that benefit the wider community. Our current focus is on expanding the provision of affordable housing in the county; but we are also interested in providing space for leisure, nature, work, and food production.

We are a not-for-profit organisation whose workforce is made up almost entirely of volunteers. See our website oclt.org.uk.

OCLT Directors outside the Land Trust's first affordable housing development, Crofts Court (image below) in Botley, just outside Oxford. 

Crofts Court, OCLT's first affordable housing development, comprising 8 flats let at permanently-affordable rents.

Why should I donate to this cause?

We believe that land use, and particularly housing, lies at the root of many other problems afflicting our society today. The price of housing takes up a huge proportion of people’s incomes. If people are overburdened by housing costs, this has a direct negative impact on every other aspect of their lives, damaging their mental and physical health, forcing them to work longer hours in jobs they are less well suited to, reducing their ability to care for themselves and others, and so on.

What will you do with any extra money you raise?

In the first instance, this will go towards other costs directly associated with getting the house ready to let (solicitors’ fees, surveys, etc.). Any money raised over and above this will be put towards securing our next homes for permanently-affordable rent in Oxfordshire.

What will you do if you fail to reach your target?

If we fail to reach our target amount, don’t worry, your donation will still go towards refurbishing the property. We will find the additional money needed from our budget to make up the shortfall – so that we can proceed with the full refurbishment on schedule – and will aim to fundraise this amount later in the year to cover our costs.

This project successfully funded on 15th January 2024