Hope Co-Housing was recently invited to attend the Scottish Parliament to speak about their project for community led housing for older people in St Margaret’s Hope.

Speaking at the event on Friday 21 January, Jenny Rambridge from Hope Cohousing (HCH) made the case for building affordable rental cohousing for older people. Other contributors included Margaret Whitelaw from the Lenzie Cohousing Project and the Housing Minister, Paul McLennan.

Camilla Nielsen-Englyst described how cohousing is flourishing in Denmark; Paul Chatterton set out the wellbeing and financial benefits based both on his research and his experience of living in a cohousing development in Leeds (LILAC); and Craig White discussed new models of finance.

The audience included MSPs, and a large number of people interested in the development of community-led housing. After the event Orkney Constituency MSP Liam McArthur LibDem said he was delighted to hear Jenny talk about the Hope Cohousing project here in Orkney which is now ‘shovel ready’. ‘Hopefully’, he continued, ‘it will attract the funding it still needs to go forward and provide an innovative way of meeting housing needs, while taking pressure off care and other public services’.

The event was hosted by Highlands and Islands Scottish Green MSP Ariane Burgess and organised by the charity Cohousing Scotland. One of the key requests made was for the Scottish Government to honour its promise to fund the building of pilot cohousing projects – the first of which would be the Hope Cohousing development in St Margaret’s Hope.