Branches Housing Co-operative
Dodgy landlords, leaking roofs, ever increasing rent and isolated lives, sounds familiar? It did to us; In 2007 eight young people, from around Bradford and the world, fed up with the state of housing and the price of buying got together to form Branches. We don’t exist as some “charity” but a group of people that actively want to make a difference. We wanted to live, work and play somewhere we could afford, somewhere we knew was safe and somewhere we would interact with the community around us to make it better. A year later we moved into our first temporary house in Preston Street. We wanted to get the ball rolling on our project and start living in a more positive way. Since then we have had members come and go as their lives have moved on, but we remain in contact with everyone and are part of a growing network of people in Bradford that want to make the city great from below and not by building dead-end shopping centres and posh apartments.
Everyone that lives in Branches is committed to social change and we each spend time doing this. We have strong links with the collectively-run 1in12 Club and in the past have all been part of anti-nuclear/anti-militaristic campaigning. We are active in independent media and supporting asylum-seekers.
We are members of the Radical Routes network, who have agreed a loan to form part of a deposit to buy a home to house our co-op. Right now we are looking for a couple of new members to make this dream come true. We are hoping to buy a house here in Bradford, to grow some food, to grow our movement for social change.
