Question

To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what steps the Church Commissioners are taking to provide affordable, sustainable and beautiful housing to support community wellbeing on the Church estate.

The Church Commissioners’ land portfolio currently has potential to deliver around 30,000 new homes across England. The aim is to deliver high quality new homes and employment opportunities to support and enhance their local surroundings. New developments provide a mixture of market and affordable homes and can include new primary and secondary schools, community facilities, local retail centres, libraries, sports facilities and new areas of public open space. Through best practice masterplanning and placemaking, the Church Commissioners seek to build new communities, and strengthen existing ones, helping to create and sustain vibrant and vital places.

The Archbishops’ Commission on Housing, Church and Community, which reported earlier this year, set out a vision for housing centred on five core values: that good housing should be sustainable, safe, stable, sociable and satisfying. The Church Commissioners support these values as a way of defining what good looks like as an important step in building thriving communities. The full report from the Archbishops’ Commission can be seen here: https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/priorities/archbishops-commission-housing-church-and-community