A step by step guide to community-led building projects

Introducing the roadmap to developing a community-led building, including Locality’s key ingredients for a successful project.

The Community Buildings Checker has been designed to give a quick and rough overview as to whether the basic parameters and assumptions for a community led housing and/or community building scheme have the potential to be viable. You can use this tool in the feasibility process of your project.

Key questions need to be asked to ensure that a project is needed, and that there is the drive and commitment to make it happen. Successful community-led developments rely on a dedicated and committed team who have addressed issues such as effective community engagement, evidence, financial viability, structure, business plan and who the partners are.

Use this stage to build in flexibility wherever possible so that you can avoid potential problems later on. Things like site selection, finding funding, developing and designing your project and statutory consents all form part of the planning stage of your project.

The construction or delivery phase of your project should have been thoroughly considered in the project development phase. Determining governance with a project board and the routes to project delivery right through to procurement, project management and construction are some of the aspects of project delivery.

The opening and running of buildings is the last stage in the journey, but requires equal consideration during the project development stage. Areas such as human resources, fitting out, systems and finance, opening, and monitoring and impact should all be considered in the completion of a community-led building.