After all, some of the main reasons for setting up such community schemes were to aggregate the demand for finance and reduce the risk (and therefore cost) of such finance to individual householders. And these are also some of the main drivers for the Green Deal financing schemes coming along now (like the proverbial buses - several at a time). The Green Deal Finance Company is one such entity that has just been incorporated and will, one hopes, be open for business soon, in time for the 'soft launch' of the Green Deal in Autumn 2012.
It remains to be seen whether the offers made available by the Green Deal Finance Company (or other providers of finance) will prove to be more attractive to community members than setting up their own community schemes. However, it seems highly likely that they will, because of the much larger potential for aggregation and economies of scale compared with community schemes that tend to be quite small. Therefore, it seems likely that Low Carbon West Oxford will be destined to be one of a small, select group of innovative ground-breakers. At least they'll be able to say "we did it first, and others followed in our footsteps to take our ideas to scale".