The challenge of finding six alternative rental options costing under £500 pcm has become increasingly difficult as Lowe Cost Living reaches its last few weeks.
Bemoaning my imminent homelessness last month, I got chatting with a regular in my local pub who let slip that his son had just moved into a housing co-operative on the South Bank and was paying £80 a week for his own one-bed flat.
Fast-forward three weeks, and I was in the last few days of my digs still with nothing to move into firmed up, so I Googled “housing co-ops London”. The top result was “Co-operative housing: Coin Street, South Bank”. A few calls later I managed to track down Coin Street’s head of housing, Brian Trainor, who, sensing my desperation, agreed to meet up.
Stretching along 13 acres of the South Bank, Coin Street Community Builders is a remarkable success story for community action. In 1977, a developer announced plans to build Europe’s tallest hotel and more than 1m sq ft of office space within the site. But the local community argued that there was an acute need for affordable housing for local people, and that this land should be rejuvenated for those who lived and worked in the area.
A campaign group fronted by Ken Livingstone was established and, after seven years, secured the land from the Greater London Council. The Coin Street Community Builders group was formed and over the past 25 years has delivered more than 220 high-quality but affordable homes in the area.
How the co-op works
The accommodation is split up into four housing developments run by “fully-mutual” co-operatives. Although co-operative members do not individually own the houses and flats they live in and have to pay a nominal rent to the co-op (between £80 and £160 pcm depending on size), they are expected to take an active part in the running of the cooperative.
Gaining membership of one of the four housing co-ops at Coin Street is very difficult. Half come through the local authority, while the other half comprises “key workers” within the local community: people who don’t earn large salaries but contribute significantly to the area and need to be close to their work, such as teachers and nurses. When new members arrive they are expected to spend their first year on the committee to get an understanding of how everything works.
Brian was true to his word and had managed to persuade Lily, a local midwife, secretary of one of the co-ops and long-time resident at Coin Street, to come and listen to what I had to say. I was extremely grateful that Lily took pity on my plight and agreed to put me up for the three weeks and keep within my budget of £115 per week. She, along with her two teenage boys, and brother-in-law’s father, a lovely chap named Chris, lived in the Iroko development, the most recently constructed co-op on Coin Street, which opened to tenants in 2004.
Sitting opposite ITV’s headquarters on the South Bank, Iroko is an architectural masterpiece, bearing little resemblance to my expectations of what social housing looked like. In fact, with its balconies and rooftop penthouses, you could walk past it thinking it was another exclusive multi-million-pound development along the river.
The building’s architect, Haworth Tomkins, aimed to ensure the scheme offered a variety of house sizes to reflect demand from families in the area. The firm opted for terraced houses with a modern twist: over half of the 59 units offer five bedrooms.
Of course it is all very well producing attractive housing but what really matters is how it functions within the community and as family living space. The houses were built to last and to incur minimal maintenance costs, utilising no cheap materials. Furthermore, the units’ insulation and solar panels ensure they are cheap to run in the long term. Every home comes equipped with a private garden but also has access to a large communal landscaped garden used and looked after by all residents.
Useful features
At Knight Frank, we invest a lot of time designing rental accommodation. Many of this scheme’s features are being incorporated into the projects that we are working on today.
My room was on the top floor of a three-story house with my two new housemates, Lily’s sons Hamish, 14, and Arthur, 11. Any trepidations, prompted by memories of my own ill-discipline as a youth, were quickly put to bed as they turned out to be two of the most relaxed and well behaved lads I have met.
Although my room was compact, it served as the perfect crash pad and even had a balcony overlooking an open courtyard in the centre that provided a view of the Shard on one corner and the London Eye on the other. My only disturbances at night came in the form of a Siamese cat that loved nothing better than to lodge itself under my bed and refuse to come out.
Home-cooked meals
After three months on the road having to fend for myself, it was pleasure to enjoy some home-cooked food waiting for me on the table. Over dinner, my adopted family gave me an excellent insight into how the co-op functioned, its pros and cons, and the importance of community in the success of such schemes.
The co-op was an excellent example of modern urban housing, both in an architectural and social sense. But it is clear that these schemes will not work without intense dedication from a group of people believing in the cause. It is a fascinating, democratic approach to housing: ensuring that residents have a substantial stake in their homes. This results in them being well looked after. And because the leasehold is owned jointly by all co-operative members, individual tenants do not have the “right to buy” and thus housing remains available and affordable for those in need.
Sadly such schemes would not have been possible if they relied wholly upon funding from the government’s housing corporation. What has allowed Coin Street to prosper is the income generated from its commercial activities, such as the rent from the Oxo Tower. And this was made possible only by securing the land at the right price many years ago.
Knight Frank’s tenant survey, published last month, revealed that, in London in particular, most young renters were prepared to compromise on accommodation size and shared living spaces if they could live in a central location.
What might present a challenge and an opportunity for the rental sector is creating a community founded co-operation and mutual benefit in which responsibility to manage the site falls to the tenants. Landlords would be guaranteed long-term tenants and minimal void periods if the tenants had a vested interest in ensuring that the site was fully occupied, and well maintained, in exchange for a central location nearer their work.
Moving on, I have found myself in my last location: a hybrid between a horsebox and a Ford transit van! With temperatures falling, this has presented a new challenge altogether.
For more updates, follow Tim @Lowecostliving or watch his video diaries at www.estatesgazette.com/Lowecostliving
