Chagford’s efforts to provide local homes for local people in a ‘groundbreaking’ scheme including a new fire station have been rewarded with a prestigious award.

Chagford Community Trust, a not-for-profit organisation run by the community, received the award for ‘outstanding community contribution’ at the Devon Rural Housing Awards for its work on a large scheme with a private developer, which includes affordable homes guaranteed for local people.

The scheme, which is currently being built, includes a new fire station, business units and older people’s housing. In total 93 homes are being built on a site opposite the village primary school.

The award was made by the Devon Rural Housing Partnership, which works with local authorities across Devon to provide affordable housing throughout the county, on September 28 at the Devon Communities Together Annual Futures Conference at Westpoint, Exeter.

Roger Stokes, chairman of the trust, said: ‘The board of Chagford Community Trust are very proud to be the recipients of this prestigious Rural Housing Award.

‘We appreciate public recognition of the considerable effort and commitment put in by a number of individuals to achieve the original goals of community ownership of the freeholds of 28 affordable houses and of full ownership of four small business units on the soon-to-be-built Bellacouche site in Chagford.

‘We are grateful to Dartmoor National Park Authority, the developers C G Fry Ltd, Chagford Parish Council and especially the Wessex CLT Project for their support over the past four years.’

Sue Southwell, rural housing enabler at the Devon Rural Housing Partnership, said the scheme was much bigger in scale than other affordable housing schemes in Devon villages the partnership had worked on.

‘It is a bit of a groundbreaker because a lot of the homes are for sale on the open market but with a number of affordable houses which are going to be managed by the Community Land Trust, Chagford Community Trust. They have worked really hard to ensure that local people will get these homes and that they will stay affordable forever,’ she said.

‘A lot of the time, affordable housing schemes do not go ahead because of local opposition, but because they were local people driving this process, there was very little opposition. It was clear that they were here to benefit the local community.’