Council housing can work: Lessons from East Barnwell

It is 50 years ago that Britain last delivered in excess of 350,000 new homes per year. Around 200,000 were delivered by the private sector, but 150,000 were built by councils. So, the last time the UK hit the numbers it needs today, it did so because local authorities were major housebuilders.

Today, the question is whether councils can once again play a decisive role in delivering homes at scale. A project currently under construction in Barnwell in Cambridge suggests that they can, if they embrace new delivery models, pursue intelligent densification and collaborate meaningfully with the private sector.

Identified for regeneration in the 2006 local plan, Barnwell’s local centre suffered from ageing shops, tired residential blocks and poor quality public realm. Progress was slow for many years, in part because large-scale urban renewal requires capacity, funding and technical expertise that most councils no longer hold in-house.

This changed when Cambridge City Council, through its joint venture with The Hill Group – the Cambridge Investment Partnership (CIP) – committed to a comprehensive redevelopment strategy. The result is ‘East Barnwell’: an estimated £50m scheme that delivers a vibrant new district centre of 120 new affordable council homes, community centre, library, preschool, café and commercial units. The buildings are knitted together with landscaped public spaces including a new central square.

The project has been built to stringent sustainability standards and includes air-source heat pumps, green roofs and solar panels and a 20% biodiversity net gain: double the national statutory requirement.

This is council housing, but not as the post-war generation knew it. It is mixed use, sustainable and designed around movement, community and wellbeing.

It exemplifies that partnerships can unlock delivery. CIP leverages the complementary strengths of the public and private sectors. The council brings democratic accountability, long-term stewardship and community trust. Hill contributes development, design and construction expertise.

The outcome is 23 different projects across the city, and delivery of 1,000 homes and counting, including 700+ net new council homes. The sustained community engagement and close collaboration with the planning team means that schemes have consistently achieved planning permission on the first attempt.

Councils alone often lack the resources or risk appetite to undertake complex regeneration. Equally, market-driven development does not always have the access to land and does not always prioritise long-term social value. At East Barnwell, the joint venture structure mitigates these weaknesses. The public sector sets the direction and owns the assets; the private sector ensures efficient, high quality delivery. It is a hybrid approach, but one increasingly recognised as essential for meeting today’s housing needs.

National planning policy states that urban land must be optimised before green belt release is considered. This requires higher density development, especially in well-connected locations. But densification remains politically and socially challenging unless it is demonstrably high quality.

East Barnwell has increased the number of homes on the site from 18 to 120, all of them affordable, while improving open space, connectivity, and the overall character of the area. This is possible because the scheme reorganises land intelligently, replacing poorly used spaces with a coherent layout anchored by new community facilities and public realm. Whilst tall buildings can be a sensitive issue in the historic city an increase in height was felt to be appropriate in creating a strong identity for the district centre, and providing a new landmark for the rest of the neighbourhood to coalesce around.

East Barnwell is not a one-off success. It forms part of a sustained council-led delivery pipeline. Through CIP, Cambridge has delivered hundreds of new affordable homes in recent years, with more under construction. These schemes collectively demonstrate that, when equipped with the right tools, councils can again become engines of housing delivery.

As planners debate the future of British housing policy, projects like East Barnwell demonstrate that solutions already exist. Council housing can work. It has worked before and with the right partnerships, it can help the country meet ambitious housing targets.

John Mason is an associate at Carter Jonas