Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs
The Still Green Apartments
Work should begin in mid 2024 and the Love Wolverton site will take about two years to construct. It is hoped the Still Green apartment block will be completed in 2026.
Please get in touch and we can show you the plans for the available apartments. More plans of the site are available on the Love Wolverton site here.
For the current price list of available apartments please get in touch. The price includes a standard fitted kitchen and a contribution towards the common areas. The Common Areas include a large Common Room and a Guest Suite, a small laundry, a bike and mobility aid store and of course, a landscaped garden.
Yes. The leases are currently being finalised but it is expected that flats will have a 250 year lease, with Still Green CIC holding the Head Lease of 999 years from Milton Keynes Council.
On joining Still Green members pay an initial £1,000 and then a further £1,500 in commitment fees. These funds will go towards setting up the communal areas and for other costs associated with the project. Once you have bought your flat there will be the usual costs for Council Tax, electricity, water, TV license etc. There will also be a service charge, which we will aim to keep as low as possible by doing as much as we can ourselves. There is no ground rent.
A registered Housing Association will handle the rented properties, though tenants will have to be over 50 and agree with the Values and Ethos of Still Green. At present a final arrangement has yet to be made with a Hosing Association.
All apartments are accessible by wheelchair (there is a lift to storeys 1 & 2) and one 1-bed apartment, which could be fully adapted for those using a wheelchair is still available. Please see details of this apartment here.
Yes. Still Green recognises the importance of pets to their owners and as companions. Our pet policy is here. Pets are not allowed in indoor communal areas and owners are expected to take responsibility for them and clear up after them.
This is a town centre development and parking will be limited. There will be some parking spaces for rent and we hope that most residents who want their own parking space will be able to have one. There will be a car club in the wider development and we plan to have a Still Green car club to enable residents who do not want to have their own car to have access to a car when they really need one. Wolverton railway station with trains to London and Birmingham is an eight-minute walk away and buses to the centre of Milton Keynes and many other places will stop right outside.
Once you own your apartment you are free to do internal decorations as well as making changes to your kitchen and bathroom. You will not be able to make changes that affect the overall structure of the block and would affect your neighbours’ properties.
The lease will set out the procedure for selling. In order to maintain the ethos and values of Still Green there will be a period of time (probably 12 weeks) when Still Green will seek to find a buyer from our waiting pool of people who want to live in cohousing. If a buyer is not found during that time you are free to sell in the usual way through an estate agent. There will be a small exit fee (probably 0.5% of the sale price), which goes into the sinking fund for major future repairs.
Cohousing
Yes, the planning permission requires that one member of the household must be over 50. We aim to have a wide spread of ages from 50 upwards.
There are currently 30 full members in 22 households. There are three apartments currently unreserved.
We expect that members will continue to further their knowledge of cohousing and get to know the area into which they will move. They are expected to contribute to building the community, to attend meetings (unless they live a very long way away), and engage with our online communication system.
We meet in person every two months for a members meeting followed by an open meeting for new enquirers. These are normally held at the Quaker Centre in Milton Keynes. In the in-between months we try to have a social event where members can meet together and chat. Often this is a lunch and walk together. We also have on-line meetings, usually of small groups of members to progress particular pieces of work, and we share ‘general chat’ and news about the progress of the project through our online communications system.
Cohousing offers the opportunity to have your own private home but within an intentional community where there are some common facilities and neighbours who share the values and ethos of Still Green.
You own your own apartment, as with any other apartment property. Still Green CIC owns the Head Lease for all of the properties and common facilities. Everyone pays service charges to insure the whole property, to maintain the fabric and maintenance of the buildings, to pay our share of the estate management fees and to fulfil our legal obligations with regard to the block.
Formerly Still Green CIC has a Board elected by the members to take final decisions. But members are involved in decisions that affect everyone through discussion at meetings, through our on-line communications system, in all cases striving to reach consensus as far as is possible.
People interested in becoming a member are invited to contact us. You will be able to have a phone conversation with a member and be invited to our next open meeting and/or to a social event. Once you have attended a meeting, met us and we have met you, and established that Still Green is something you are looking for, then you will be invited to complete a simple application form. Following this a zoom conversation with our membership group will be arranged. If you then still want to be a member and we believe we can offer you what you are looking for you will be invited to become a member and pay your £1,000 commitment fee. The date of this payment determines your formal date of membership.
The Development
The Love Wolverton development is located in the heart of Wolverton which is a town on the outskirts of Milton Keynes City. The development consists of 6 buildings including the Still Green building situated in the centre of the scheme facing on to Church Street to the north.
Eight new shop units ranging from 64m2 to 240m2 in size will be provided along Church Street, on the reinstated Radcliffe Street and the Square. This will include locally-run business such as a bakery and a restaurant, along with a small convenience supermarket. There will also be a community use space on the ground floor of the Still Green building.
The public realm is carefully designed to prioritise pedestrians; as well as private gardens and shared courtyards, there will be a small community garden facing Buckingham Street and the site will also provide bike-hire schemes for residents to use.
More details about the project can be found on the Love Wolverton website here.
Construction of the scheme will commence in mid 2024 and be completed 2026 when residents can move in.
TOWN is working as the enabling developer with Still Green’s members to build the homes and shared facilities within the Love Wolverton regeneration scheme in Milton Keynes.
TOWN is a profit-with-purpose developer with a mission to build good places for better lives. Working with award winning architects and designers they deliver homes, streets and neighbourhoods that improve people’s quality of life, enable more sustainable ways of living and improve the wider places they are part of.
TOWN is the UK’s leading developer of cohousing communities, with over 150 homes in progress across six new developments. To find out more about TOWN please visit their website.
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