Leathermarket Community Benefit Society (CBS) is a community-led organisation that was set up by the members of the Leathermarket Joint Management Board (JMB) in 2014, to address residents’ concerns about the lack of affordable housing available in the local area. 

CBS works with and for residents to meet local housing needs, by building high quality, genuinely affordable homes that the entire community can be proud of.  Whilst CBS is primarily dedicated to building new homes, it continues to work in close collaboration with Leathermarket JMB and its tenants and residents.  Residents are at the heart of the development process, ensuring that plans are a genuine reflection of the community’s interests and needs.

CBS’s first development, consisting of 27 genuinely affordable homes delivered in partnership with Southwark Council, was completed in 2018.  The development process was truly community-led, demonstrating a grassroots approach to utilising existing space better on social housing estates and empowering residents to address the housing needs in their own neighbourhood. The scheme targeted downsizers who were over-occupying properties in the local community, thereby freeing up larger properties for overcrowded local families. In total, over 60 households moved into homes that better met their needs and the benefits of the scheme were shared with Southwark Council, who funded the development.  Construction began on the second CBS development in 2019.