Creating Community-Led and Self-Build Homes: A Guide to Collaborative Practice in the UK

In Creating Community-Led and Self-Build Homes, Martin Field explores the ways in which people and communities across the UK have been striving to create the homes and neighbourhood communities they want.

Giving context to contemporary practices in the UK, the book examines ‘self-build housing’ and ‘community-led housing’, discussing the commonalities and distinctions between these in practice, and what could be learned from other initiatives across Europe.

Individual methods and models of local practice are explored - including cohousing, cooperatives, community land trusts, empty homes and other intentional communities - and an examination is made of what has constrained such initiatives to date and how future policies and practice might be shaped.

Dr. Field is engaged in freelance community development on housing and planning initiatives with the public and community sectors. He is an Honorary Associate at the Centre for Comparative Housing Research at De Montfort University, following work as Senior Researcher with the Institute for Urban Affairs and the Collaborative Centre for the Built Environment, both at the University of Northampton. Previously he held senior housing positions in the statutory sector at district and regional levels, plus roles with community bodies and housing associations, and has been a Board member of various national community-led housing bodies.