New Ground (OWCH) History

1998 - A Joseph Rowntree Foundation research study by Maria Brenton was presented to an audience of women in London. This introduced the concept of senior cohousing as developed in The Netherlands, combining the findings of a research study commissioned from Maria by the then Housing Corporation.

A group of six women who already knew each other attended this workshop and decided that they would act on the Dutch example and create their own women’s cohousing community in London.

Prime movers were Madeleine Levius, who died in 2005, and Shirley Meredeen who until her death in 2022 was the single founder member still left at New Ground. The first meeting of what became OWCH met in Shirley’s home in August 1998. In 2017, in memory of Madeleine, and after discussion with her family, we set up a ‘Madeleine Fund’ to provide help to any member who might find herself in need.

Housing for Women, a small housing association and charity, was represented at the workshop by then-director, Elizabeth Clarson who offered the association’s help in developing the concept of cohousing for older women. In June 1999 a formal partnership agreement was made between Housing for Women and the New Ground group. Thus was born a collaborative relationship between Housing for Women and OWCH that has lasted to this day, with Meera Bedi, H4W’s director of new developments for most of the ensuing years, playing an important facilitative role.

H4F’s role was to ‘broker’ relationships with larger housing associations with development capacity and access to land. This was needed because, from the start, the New Ground women were keen to be socially inclusive and provide for women who lacked equity and needed social rentals. In the early years, this required a Housing Grant which could only be obtained via a registered housing association. Over time, the availability of Housing Grant diminished. As a result, no grant money has been drawn upon for the social rental units included in our cohousing community.

1999 - The Joseph Rowntree Foundation agreed to fund Maria to work part-time with the OWCH group. A management group was set up with representation of JRF, Housing for Women and the OWCH group to support efforts to progress the cohousing idea. This relationship and JRF funding lasted until 2004, when the Foundation called time on its generous support.

In 1999 Maria organised a visit to cohousing communities in The Netherlands by six OWCH women and the director of H4W. 

2000 - 2006 The OWCH group continued to attract members. A strong emphasis was placed on keeping a flat non-hierarchical structure and involving everyone in the task groups for Finance, Communications, Membership, etc.  Early on, New Ground members agreed core values of respect and tolerance and mutual support, as well as a positive approach to ageing and care for the environment. They set up a Company Limited by Guarantee and a bank account. Residential weekends each year were a feature of these early years, usually focused on building group solidarity and developing policies for when they would live together.  Women brought to the group skills and emotional intelligence honed through years of feminist networking, following careers or rearing children.

Many hundreds of older women came to the meetings through these years, moving on when their housing needs became urgent or their hopes depressed by the difficulties faced by the group in achieving their goals.

OWCH’s decision to create a community for women only was a given from the start. Questions raised about this over the years met the response that it conforms to Equality legislation - a fact confirmed by legal advice.  A further reason, OWCH argued, was that older men of the same era had not benefited from feminism’s awakening of gender consciousness and were still almost universally ‘unreconstructed’ in their views of male dominance and female subservience as a ‘natural relationship’.

See also:
Community Building for Old Age: Breaking New Ground. The UK’s first senior cohousing community

Maria and Elizabeth Clarson of Housing for Women approached the Housing Corporation (now the Homes England and Regulator of Social Housing) for support. This resulted in a Corporation funded ‘Innovation and Good Practice’ Study to examine the concept of cohousing in the context of British housing. Part of this exercise involved reaching out to all the London councils to introduce the concept and garner support, but few were interested.  A brief expert report was produced aimed mostly at reassuring local authorities. In 2002, the Corporation awarded OWCH a Social Housing Grant that was portable across London. This vanished over time, along with the relationship with the Housing Corporation as it went on to become the HCA.

Many, many London sites were explored - among them a DHSS Building in Uxbridge Road, West London; Holmes Rd, Kentish Town; two sites in Wembley; a site in Kingsbury; the Mildmay Hospital in Hoxton; Hackney Priory; Deptford; the St George developments in Vauxhall, Sands End and Putney.

Many housing associations were approached, such as Anchor, North British, Hanover. London & Quadrant, Family. Acton, Peabody, ASRA, Hyde; all got involved briefly at different times and put forward possible sites which came to nothing. A site identified in West London by Acton Housing Association was turned down by New Grounders because too subject to noise and traffic pollution.

The first prospect of a real scheme came via ASRA on church land in Wembley, in Brent, a borough moderately favourable to the cohousing concept as long as a pan-London grant was in place. OWCH members put in a lot of effort in lobbying the Council and mounting a visible New Ground presence at local festivals. Two years work on this site and two further sites came to nothing, partly through planning difficulties.

The extent of outreach to the housing world and the political system undertaken in these years by key OWCH members, Maria and Housing for Women cannot be fully portrayed here. It should be seen against a backdrop of insufficient supply where housing has remained low priority. London, with its 32 local authorities and pressures of family homelessness, is also a difficult place to develop an unfamiliar housing model. Ageism and a dominant culture of paternalism has also played its part in the long journey travelled by the New Ground project.

This West London charity approached Maria Brenton in 2006 to enquire how the OWCH experiment might relate to their interest in self-determining communities of older people. This was the beginning of a happy relationship which has lasted to the present day. First the Trust funded Maria’s time and OWCH running expenses for many years. Finally, the Trust made a generous capital grant to Housing for Women for the social rental flats when it became clear that a Housing Grant would not be forthcoming. It also provided funds to the OWCH group to ensure a high quality communal setting.

Hanover’s chief executive, Bruce Moore, was interested in cohousing as a model which might spark a culture of self-management among the residents of Hanover housing schemes. Hanover’s interest had been encouraged by visits to cohousing schemes in Continental Europe, particularly that resulting in the HAPPI Report on older people’s housing published by the Homes and Communities Agency in 2009.

Approached by Maria, Bruce Moore offered to find us a site and the present site was identified in High Barnet. Hanover purchased this redundant school at risk in early 2010, became its developer and provided the capital for developing the scheme. Opposition from Barnet Council to an older persons’ development in their borough combined with all kinds of planning blockage to delay the scheme from 2010. Maria and OWCH women worked hard to lobby officers and councillors. A decisive factor in the granting of planning permission in early 2013 was support solicited from the then Director for Adult Social Care who agreed with our argument that a senior cohousing community can actually reduce the need for health and social care services. Local Barnet organisations, such as the Barnet Society, were also very supportive.  We canvassed the immediate neighbourhood, introducing the scheme to neighbours, and organised public meetings in the local library.  An exhibition was held in the local church. Members also organised ‘drop-ins’ in a local cafe for women to come and find out about the New Ground project

After 18 months we finally achieved planning permission!

Hanover gave New Grounders a choice of architects and the group chose Pollard, Thomas, Edwards architects (PTEa) who were appointed in 2010. There began an interesting time for the women as PTE involved them in scoping out the site and its locale and in designing the building. This more than anything, gave them a sense of ownership of New Ground Cohousing

The present New Ground building places emphasis on space and light, sufficient storage, sociable circulation spaces and the centrality of the ‘Common House’, as well as meeting Sustainability Code Four and ‘Secure by Design’ requirements. PTE’s perspective on the design may be found in an article by Patrick Devlin.

New Ground representatives were on the project group throughout development and construction and thus were able to ensure the group’s needs and preferences were properly considered whilst also translating the project group’s professional imperatives back to New Ground members.  Would-be cohousers should note that New Ground maintained a tight discipline during this process, agreeing protocols on communications with the developers and setting a limit on range of individual choices. This involvement was something of a learning curve for all concerned - for New Grounders to understand the technical language and conventions of the professionals and for those on the construction and development side to get to grips with the involvement of some very keen end-users. Although this degree of interaction has been unusual for a UK housing project, and challenging, it did not contribute to any delays in the development and construction process. New Ground members hope that, from our example, other housing developers will work in partnership with cohousing groups in a positive and creative way.

At the end of 2016, we finally moved in and were able to realise in practice the collaborative ethos members had worked so hard to develop in the group’s preparatory years.

An early course of action after move-in, was to invite all our neighbours in Union Street to drop in for coffee and to view the development that had tested their patience throughout the two year construction period.

Since 2017, New Ground’s achievement as the UK’s first senior cohousing community has generated a great deal of public interest and acclaim.  In line with their undertaking to the Tudor Trust, members have actively participated in promoting cohousing to potential cohousing groups. They took part in the Open House London Programme in 2017 and 2019; During the Covid19 period, the community has developed a virtual tour; They have hosted visits of officials from the Department of Housing, Communities & Local Government, from the Greater London Authority, from the Future of London Programme and from many interested visitors from overseas. There continues to be considerable press interest and New Ground Cohousing has been featured in many articles and publications.