Want new thinking about housing? The feeling's mutual

The proposals were absolutely sound: they involved the development of a trust to hold the land on which the properties are built and the development of a financial package that would enable people to make a profit, but not a killing, from a rise in house prices.

This latter detail would mean that other people would be able to get a foot on the ladder in future. Such a mechanism is far more useful than the ill thought-out key-worker schemes that are currently being employed – these help the first buyer only and help house prices rise over inflation.

This discussion with CDS made me think more about the concept of mutual status in the provision of housing. It seemed to me that mutuality can have four roles and that if we got behind those, we could really begin to stimulate some new thinking about housing.

First, mutuality in housing finance. I am a member of the Furness Building Society, an excellent local building society combining good interest rates with excellent service and a strong commitment to the people of Cumbria. Building societies were once the major source of finance for homeownership and service such as that given by the Furness was commonplace. But too many people sold out their mutuality for the shifty greed of the big banks and the promise of quick profit rather than slow appreciation of wealth.

Building societies were originally set up by working people to solve their own housing problems. We need to reinvigorate such self-help financial solutions and spread the role of good local mutuals that have a solid understanding of an area and its people.

Second, mutuality in ownership and management. One of the things of which I am most proud is that when I chaired the housing committee in Liverpool in the late 1970s and early 1980s we had the largest housing co-operatives programme in Europe. Those co-ops have stood the test of time.

Council estates built after the co-ops have needed major facelifts and have suffered a wide range of social problems but those co-op communities have held together, provided good, low-cost housing and acted as an anchor for their neighbourhoods.

These co-ops cost no more at the time than building council houses. What made them different was that they were designed by the people who were going to live in them; what keeps them different is the fact that they are managed by the people who live in them.

Too many people sold out the mutuality of building societies for the shifty greed of the big banks and the promise of quick profit

How long is it since any city had a major co-operative building programme? Are there not registered social landlords that could convert properties to a co-operative model?

Third, mutuality in building. Sweat equity is often ignored by people because it is difficult to organise. But in the 1980s many small estates were developed by residents who did the labouring and other work themselves, only calling in professionals when required.

But sweat equity seems to have gone out of fashion – I can think of only one organisation that still uses it, and that's in the USA. Are there really no people here who would be interested in such projects? Or do such ideas not meet the tidy minds of those who run RSLs and the other bodies that could act as the professional input for self-builders?

Even more importantly, do such concepts not even begin to germinate in the minds of the mandarins of the ODPM or the boffins of the Housing Corporation?

Finally, mutuality in homeownership. There are surely many ways in which people could band together to take over the freeholds of leased properties and so on.

This would have financial and community benefits.