An employee benefit no other employer can offer: a home your people can actually afford.
Atreeum builds villages of around twenty four-bedroom homes at £167,000, freehold and designed to have no energy bills, for people with a local connection to the parish. Working in the parish counts. Our ask of employers is one message to your staff telling them it exists. Nothing more.
Four reasons, and none of them cost you anything.
Do something real for your people
Most people under thirty-five working in rural Britain have quietly given up on owning a home. A four-bedroom, freehold house at £167,000 with no energy bills is the one thing that changes that. Telling your staff it exists, and that their job is what qualifies them, is a genuine act of care that takes an afternoon.
Keep the people you have
Nothing anchors an employee like a home they own near where they work. Staff who can settle, stay. In areas where housing drives turnover, a credible route to ownership is the strongest retention lever available, and it costs less than a leaving party. It also says something about the kind of employer you are.
Stand apart from other employers
Every organisation in your area competes for the same nurses, teachers, engineers, carers and chefs, with the same salaries and the same pension. "A job with us counts as a local connection for a £167,000 home with no energy bills" is a sentence none of them can put in a job advert until they join too.
A benefit that is genuinely unique
Not a discount portal, a cycle scheme or a wellbeing app. This is the first employee benefit aimed at the largest cost in your people's lives, and the one they care most about. No contract, no administration, no fee, and nothing to renew.
Tell your people. That is the whole ask.
Circulate a short message to your staff, by email, on the intranet or in a newsletter, pointing them to atreeum.co.uk/summary. If you would like to, add a line to your job adverts and careers page. Your staff register themselves, in their own time, directly with us.
There is no agreement to sign, no data to share and nothing to report back. We will not know which of your staff registered unless they tell us, and we do not need to.
Below is language you are welcome to use or adapt. It has been written so that nothing in it can come back on you: it says plainly that no homes exist yet, that registration is free, and that it commits nobody to anything.
For your staff
For job adverts and your careers page
Why this cannot come back on you.
The natural worry is promoting something to your staff that later disappoints them. Here is what protects you.
What is true, and stays true
- The homes are £167,000, four bedrooms, freehold, designed to have no energy bills. The cost build-up is published at atreeum.co.uk/summary and the full line-by-line evidence base is open to any employer on request.
- Employment in the parish is a standard local-connection qualifier for rural exception housing. Your staff qualify through their job; many will also qualify through where they grew up.
- Registration is free, takes ninety seconds, and is not a commitment to buy. Nobody pays anything, to anyone, at any stage of registering.
- Your staff deal with Atreeum directly. You are passing on information, not offering a product.
What we will never do or claim
- We will never ask you for staff names, contact details or any personal data.
- We will never charge you or your staff a fee, or send your staff anything beyond the registration they chose to make.
- We will never use your name publicly without your written agreement.
- We will never claim priority, guaranteed prices, timelines or allocations. Rural exception homes are allocated under each council's local-connection rules, not ours.
- We will never pretend homes exist to buy today. Registration is what makes a village buildable.
- Nothing here is an investment, a return, or a financial promotion. This is housing.
Say what we say and nothing more. The suggested wording above discloses the stage we are at in the second and third sentences. An employer who circulates it as written has made no promise, and has been straight with their people. That is the safest position there is, and it happens to be the most persuasive one.
Straight answers.
What does a local connection actually mean?
Each council sets its own test for rural exception sites. It normally covers people who live in the parish or an adjoining one, work there, or have close family there, and it usually cascades outwards to adjoining parishes if a home is not taken locally. A job in the parish is the standard employment route, and it connects you to that parish, not to a neighbouring one.
Our staff are spread across many parishes. Does that matter?
No. Each person registers for a parish they have a real connection to, which for most staff is where they work or where they grew up. A job qualifies someone for the parish the workplace is in, not for the parish next door. A neighbouring parish only comes into reach under the council's cascade, if its own local demand is not met first. Villages are built wherever twenty people with a local connection want one.
Will you tell us who registered?
No, and we will not know they are your staff unless they say so. Registration is between the individual and Atreeum. You will never be asked to handle anyone's data.
When would a home be ready?
Eighteen to thirty-six months from a parish reaching twenty registrations to keys, with twelve weeks of that on site. Nobody should be told a home is imminent, which is why the suggested wording says so.
Does this need to go through compliance?
Usually only to confirm what it is: information about a housing programme, with free registration and no financial product. It is not a financial promotion. We are glad to answer your compliance team's questions directly.
Can we do more than circulate a message?
Some employers want to: land on the edge of a village, staff accommodation they would rather see replaced by homes people own, or a contribution to a village's Seed Fund. Those are separate conversations on their own terms, and we welcome them.
Talk to us before you send it, if you would like to.
We are happy to answer questions, walk your HR or communications team through the numbers, or confirm the local-connection position for the parishes around your sites.