We recommend that temporary spaces and buildings are used to assist with Cambridge’s glaring problem of unaffordable housing via the method of property guardianship which is endorsed on our government’s website: “It is widely accepted that a property guardian is someone who has entered into an agreement to live in a building or part of a building that would otherwise be empty for the primary purpose of securing and safeguarding the property.” [1] There are a number of well established property guardianship organisations and it is known that one of them, Dot Dot Dot, has experience of finding temporary tenants in empty properties in Eastfield, Chesterton which provided an affordable place to live for a number of individuals in the interim period before these properties were demolished to build more social housing by local housing association, Hundred Houses Society. [2]
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/property-guardians-fact-sheet/property-guardians-afact-
sheet-for-current-and-potential-property-guardians
[2] https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/eastfield-regenerating-the-past-9054166/