AN AMBITIOUS scheme is being launched in Great Bedwyn to form a community land trust, to ensure that local families can afford to live and work go on living and working therein the village.

Great Bedwyn Parish Council has agreed to form the trust, a community-led housing project where locals raise money to buy land or buildings and plan what developments will take place, so that they can have more control over what will be built there in the future.

Now the scheme needs local volunteers to get it off the ground, so the parish council is calling for people to assist in its goal to provide affordable housing in the village.

“There is broad support and enthusiasm for this from people across the village. If we can have more control and influence over developments in the future that is great news,” said Karen Gardner, vice-chairman of Great Bedwyn Parish Council.

“We are cautiously optimistic that this can work as it has done in many other places. A lot of people are worried that younger people may leave Great Bedwyn because it is too expensive.

“This is part of a nationwide problem with rising house prices but something like this could maybe keep a few more young families here.

“Councillors agreed that the village would benefit from this as it offers the most hope of allowing us to to ensure that local families can afford to go on living and working in our popular village.

“You have houses around the £250,000 mark and in the millions so it is a real mixed community, but we like it and we want people to stay.”

The new Neighbourhood Plan has given the village a say on where any future building should be allowed, what it looks like and how developers should act to protect their environment.

But the parish council says even with this in place any developer can still buy land and sell the homes on the open market, whereas if Great Bedwyn owns the land they can control what is built and who lives in any new homes, therefore this trust needs to be formed. “The next step is to form a working group, however this is not a parish council initiative, we are just supporting it,” Karen added.

“It must be run by a separate entity and moving forward There will be a meeting about this after Christmas. It is early days but this has potential.”