We’re over-the-moon to share the news that we’ve received planning for our project at Hinton Close! Hinton will be home to four low-income households, across 2 3-bed homes, 1 2-bed home and 1 1-bed home. These will be as affordable, beautiful and sustainable as the ones we’ve built already.
We submitted our planning application in March 2022, and with community support, didn’t have to go to planning committee. The journey to planning was funded by the last round of the Community Housing Fund, which has been a vital resource to Bunker over our last sites.
We’re going to be organising a site visit for neighbours soon, and also putting things in place to start infrastructure works, funded by the Brownfield Land Release Fund.
We’re also finalising the lease on Dunster Close Garages, starting to commission some site works, working up the technical designs and structural engineering, agreeing a new nominations agreement with the council, applying to be a Registered Provider, talking to Homes England about Affordable Homes Programme funding and pinning down details of the lending that was agreed in principle by Brighton & Hove City Council in November. So we’re busy! It’s going to be an exciting year and we’re really looking forward to sharing that with you.
Mission
… to build “High Quality Homes for Low Income people” in the city of Brighton and Hove.
This has become a reality as we completed our pilot scheme of two family eco homes at Plumpton Road in Brighton. The two super insulated wooden 3-bedroom eco homes were built using a modular system of cross laminated timber panels on an ex garage site leased from Brighton & Hove City Council providing a safe, eco-friendly and economically secure environment to live in and a safe place for our children to grow.
Goals
01.
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To self- build and self -manage homes for local people in housing need that are affordable in perpetuity.
02.
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To develop homes in Brighton & Hove that will be available to local household in housing need via co-op membership.
03.
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To work with Brighton & Hove Community Land Trust and other community-led housing organisations to grow the community self-build sector in the city & beyond.
04.
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To work with Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC) to maximise the use of available land that is unsuitable for mainstream social housing development, for community self-build development.
History
We set up Bunker Housing Co-operative in 2014 after five years of trying to find affordable housing in Brighton & Hove. We started with two families with young children and teenagers but have grown and now have a membership of 10 adults plus children.
As we lived in precarious, damp and overpriced private rented accommodation and were not able to buy and not eligible (enough) for social housing OUR MISSION was to have affordable safe, secure and healthy homes and also to demonstrate that sustainable, affordable and high quality homes are not a luxury for the selected few.
We understood that affordable to live in does not mean building cheaply – we set ourselves and our architects this challenge. Creating a new housing co-op was a pragmatic decision as a pathway to housing – not about alternative living but alternative form of (collective) ownership
At the heart of our delivery plan is the building of more affordable and environmentally sustainable homes, using our experience and learning from our Plumpton Road pilot development, completed April 2020. This project has delivered an innovative scheme that has received national and local acclaim.
It has been quite a journey since we founded Bunker and we are working with a network of organisations and individuals to move our projects forward. These include: our architect Raphael Lee of AURAA Studio, our loan stock investors, our neighbours, the Officers and Councillors of Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC), Brighton & Hove Community Land Trust (BHCLT) and the Community Led Housing (CLH) enablers who work through the CLH Hub, Jon Lee and Ecology Building Society, Brighton & Hove Energy Services Co-operative (BHESCO), Cooperative Development Society (CDS), Rosa Bridge Housing Co-op and others from local Brighton & Hove co-operative networks: Cooperative Housing in Brighton and Hove (CHIBAH), the Confederation Cooperative Housing (CCH), the London Federation Cooperatives (LFHC), Radical Routes and many others who have offered their time, money and expertise to help us realise our dreams of safe, secure and affordable housing for us and our families.
Bunker is currently working with our architects, BHCC and BHCLT at different stages of development on further BHCC sites throughout the city with and we aim to build a further 15 community led homes.
Our pilot project at Plumpton Road is being used to build a tool kit and database of skills, contacts and information that is already helping the many other co-ops planning to build in the city over the coming years.
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