Three Boroughs Cooperative was founded in 1980 with just a few short-life houses, mainly owned by local authorities that leased them to Housing Associations, who subsequently leased them to Cooperatives.

These houses were standing empty and councils could not afford to upgrade them, which led to them being made over to groups that could bid for a grant to renovate the properties to a habitable standard. The houses were used to house young single people who wanted to house-share.

As councils started to take back properties, the Cooperative had to look to securing development of new houses to ensure its future as a provider of community-based affordable housing for its membership.

This was successfully achieved and we now manage a mix of shared dwellings (two-bed, three-bed and five-bed), one-bed self-contained flats and some two, three and four-bed family housing in the boroughs of Lewisham and Southwark.

The Cooperative is controlled voluntarily by its members, and accountability is exercised through its management committee, who are elected from the membership at the Annual General Meeting.

The management committee ensures that the business of the Cooperative is conducted in accordance with its policies, and have ultimate responsibility for ensuring that it has systems of control in place that are appropriate to the level of its business activities, guarding against any mismanagement or loss.

The management committee is assisted by various sub committees set up to involve themselves with specific aspects of management.

Three Boroughs fosters a self-help ethos whereby a large number of members serve on Committees, while many others help with regular tasks such as providing administrative assistance and maintenance work for example.