Building work in progress at the Bicclescombe site.
Mark Read, Chair of the Ilfracombe Community Land Trust, writes:” My monthly visits to our Bicclescombe Nursery Project are always an eye-opening experience; whether it be the technology our contractors are employing to work effectively and efficiently, or the depth and breadth of detail that is covered in our site progress meeting.
My last visit yielded a more literal eye-opening moment as I stood on top of the scaffolding by an almost completed roof, at the opening for a window, looking down the valley to the ocean, thinking to myself – “this will be someone’s view”.
The view of the Bristol Channel from one of the new units.
But as well as being eye-opening, this project has opened my eyes to the power of community-led housing. Across North Devon District, the required number of social houses to be constructed this year is almost completely fulfilled by Community Land Trust projects. Community-led schemes have far outperformed commercially led schemes. In my day job at North Devon Salvation Army, I meet many individuals and families in Ilfracombe who are waiting for social housing. Sometimes they wait with a sense of frustration, sometimes with a feeling of futility, sometimes with a sense of hopelessness. It’s nice to imagine that perhaps one of those children who have known nothing but damp, dark, noisy flats above shops or tucked down a tatty alleyway might come to know what I was looking at as the view from their bedroom window. It is easy then to hope that the child will grow up with a sense of place in Ilfracombe; a sense of enjoyment and pride in the town. Perhaps that is naïve or overly romantic – but I don’t think it is. The environment we inhabit affects us profoundly, and as a community, we have more power than we perhaps realise to shape it.
The construction of our houses continues on schedule and is moving towards a summer 2027 completion, and in just a few days I’ll be back on site for my next eye-opening experience.