Glastonbury Festival goers to find out more about affordable housing

Published by pdavey for Flourish Homes in Housing and also in Communities

Glastonbury Festival founder Michael Eavis is using the popular midsummer weekend event to turn the spotlight on the issue of affordable housing and how difficult it is for young people to get a home of their own.

Glastonbury Festival has chosen affordable housing as one of its themes this year and over the three day event (June 27 - 29) a team of 15 volunteers, including Somerset-based Mendip Housing and Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) workers, are asking festival goers about their hopes and aspirations about where they will live in the future. They will also investigate peoples views on what they think holds them back from getting their own place, whether bought or rented, and what they know about affordable housing and where to get housing advice.

The results will then be presented at a special conference being organised jointly by Mendip Housing, the Aster Group and the South West branch of the CIH, supported by Glastonbury Festival. The three organisations got together to organise the conference for Michael Eavis who wanted to harness the coverage that Glastonbury Festival gets to raise awareness about the chronic shortage of affordable housing across the country.

The local farmer and festival organiser has already shown practical support within his home village of Pilton by offering land to build new houses. His vision is to see these types of opportunities becoming more available across the country.

The current housing crisis is just not sustainable and should be the most important concern in the whole country. I wanted to start an awareness campaign to highlight the need for many more affordable homes. All over the country, families are struggling to find a home they can afford and many youngsters have to leave where they grew up because they cant afford to live there when they come to setting up their own home, said Michael Eavis.

Shepton Mallet-based Mendip Housing, whose 4,000+ stock can be found in Glastonbury and surrounding towns and villages, and the Aster Group have now joined forces with the South West branch of the Chartered Institute of Housing to organise the one-day conference in July, supported by Glastonbury Festival, to explore the barriers faced at local levels to building more affordable homes.

As the largest provider of affordable homes in the Mendip area where Glastonbury can be found we were really pleased to help Michael take this idea of a conference forward and were delighted when the Chartered Institute of Housing offered their expertise, said Alan Brunt, Managing Director of Mendip Housing which is a member of the Aster Group.

Every year for the Festival Michael manages to build a tented city for more than 170,000 people in two months at Worthy Farm, so he knows a thing or two about delivering what seems like the impossible! Thats what we want this conference to try to do by tackling some of those frustrating barriers that hold back the development of affordable housing at a local level. We want to inspire the audience to go back to their home patches and drive affordable housing to the top of their respective agendas. We need to find ways to bridge the gap between peoples dwindling ability to afford to buy, which makes affordable rented homes even more crucial, and homeowners desires to maintain the status quo. The Government has already signalled its commitment through financial investment but we need to encourage a climate of commitment on the ground to do all we can to make sure affordable homes get built.

The conference takes place on Thursday July 24 at the Centurion Hotel in Radstock near Bath. More information from www.mendiphousing.co.uk or www.cih.org/events. Michael Eavis will speak at the conference as will Matthew Taylor MP who is special advisor to the Government on Sustainable Rural Communities.