rural housing
We are particularly interested in solving the problem of affordable housing in rural areas. This doesn't necessarily mean social housing, although there is usually demand for at least some social rented housing in any village. Rather it means housing that local people can afford to rent or buy, and so stay within the community where they live or work.
The development of "rural exception sites", land which would not normally be developed for housing, is a very specialised sector. Policies are changing fast in response to changes in social housing funding and planning law. Traditional providers of rural housing are proving to be either in capable of or unwilling to embrace new models.
C-Zero is now working on a number of rural exception sites with a different Councils where the solution is based on the concept of "cross subsidy", which is where open market housing is used to help pay for the provision of social housing and forms of low cost home ownership, rather than government grant.
Our site at Long Meadow, Diss, is one of the largest rural exception sites in the country, and is one of very few examples of the cross subsidy model being used in practice.