Eco~Village Network UK
Eco~Village Network UK
Earthbalance is a sustainable development under construction near Bedlington in Northumberland, 20 km north of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is primarily aimed a creating sustainable employment on the site.
Contact:
Steve Manchee by telephone on 01670 821000
Contact: Roger Adair
Wind Systems Design, 24 The Leazes, Throckley, Newcastle upon Tyne NE15 8QH
Tel: 0191-264 0300
Email Earthbalan@aol.com
A settlement of people living in Yurts in a wooded valley on the edge of moorland. They run several projects including a Steiner school and a Permaculture study centre.
Contact
Middle Wood, Roeburndale, Lancaster, LA2 8QX
Tel 01524 222479
http://www.marketsite.co.uk/middlewd/
An initiative to transform a derelict coal mining site (95 acres) into an eco-village comprising industry, housing, exhibition/convention, leisure and recreation. It will incorporate renewable energies - biomass, solar, PV, and wind turbines. Autonomous housing, self-build housing and eco-demonstrator houses. All buildings built to best practice energy efficiency, already established building super regulations. Site will incorporate an energy trail.
Energy and heat provided by biomass power station. This initiative is now owned by an Industrial and Provident Society for the benefit of the community. This community is in a rural coalfield area - coal was the major employer- now its gone. We are developing a sustainable future for ourselves and our kids. Contact name: Carla Jamison
Contact
Sherwood Energy Village Unit 1 Boughton Pumping Station Brake Lane Boughton
Nottinghamshire NG22 9HQ Tel: 01623 860 222 Fax: 01623 863 373 e.mail:
sev@netcomuk.co.uk Web:
http://www.sherwoodenergyvillage.co.uk
Tel/ Fax 01623-863887
Something good is cooking, an ecological community in the middle of Manchester since 1994! They now have plans underway to acquire some land and continue their project (The Bumblebee Woodland Trust) from there, low impact style.
Contact: Equinox Housing Co-op,
161 Hamilton Rd, Manchester, M13 0PQ;
Tel: 0161 2489224 or
Email: cornerstone@gn.apc.org
Wild Root are working on getting a loan off of Radical Routes. The aim is to buy woodland and to keep it low impact whilst fostering community in the group. In the meantime it has been decided to buy a very large house in Brighton itself which is to be used as a city base from which to begin the project. Wider objectives are to demonstrate the low impact approach and to provide a stable base for direct activists and people who have been cut off from state benefit under the 'Job Seekers Allowance'. The group comes from the awareness that housing takes up far too much of individual expenditure whether as a mortgage or as private rent. They plan to build on 15 acres with timber framed office toolstores woodland businesses.
Contact Angie Weyers on 01273 671935
Formed to oppose a Sainsburys development which was threatening Brighton city centre. They are hoping that the land could instead be used for sustainable development, and have recently put forward a community planning application to do this.
Contact Ben or Jenny on 01273 622727
Currently a 4 bedroom cottage with 1/2 acre of land 5 miles from Leicester. One or two properties around that could link up. The aim is to create a permaculture site and to nurture a sustainable community.
Contact: Alison Coates
Lawn Hill, 57 Markfield Road, Groby, Leicester, LE6 0FL
Tel: 0116 287 6728
Email: alisonc@foobar.co.uk
One solution to getting access to land is to get ethical finance for a Housing Co-op and buy it. The difficulty here is firstly that land is too expensive for affordable rents to cover the mortgage repayment; and many properties sell at auction, making raising the money very difficult. Stepping Stones is a Housing Co-op that thinks it may have found some solutions. By developing a business plan that gets part of its income from rents and part from Workers' Co-ops renting land and workspace, it can afford to buy small farms.
You can get a copy of Radical Routes' booklet 'How to Set Up a Housing Co-op' from 16 Sholebroke Ave, Leeds LS7 3HB for £35. Cornerstone Resource Centre Email cornerstone@gn.apc.org
And by working with Radical Routes and Triodos Bank on a 'model' loan application, it can raise finance with lightning speed. Stepping Stones needs more members so that it can start looking for properties in England and Wales in the next year. If you'd like to live and work on an eco-hamlet (vegetarian, basic incomes, committed to social change), they'd like to hear from you:
Contact: Stepping Stones
Cartref, Llanegryn, Tywyn, Gwynedd, LL36 9SN
Vision statement - "By practical example, act as a catalyst for change towards ecologically sound and sustainable ways of living"
Five earth sheltered houses on a 25 acre site. The houses are certain to be amongst the most energy efficient, purpose built dwellings in Europe. They are designed to have no secondary heating requirements and all energy needs will be supplied by renewables. The land will be worked co-operatively according to organic principles. Water will be drawn from sources on site and sewage disposed of via. a reed bed system.
The families that form the Hockerton Housing Project are ordinary people who want to make a difference, to show others that we can live and work in harmony with our environment and minimize our day to day impact upon it.
For Text file of aims and objectives
For further information, including information packs, site visits, talks and consultancy arrangements
Contact Nick White:
2 Mystery Hall, Gables Drive, Hockerton, nr. Newark, Notts, NG25 OQU;.
Tel: 01636 816902
Email:
hhp@hockerton.demon.co.uk
Why not check out our website - http://www.hockerton.demon.co.uk/
Is proposing an ecovillage designed to be an "ecological, working community for the new breed of elder". From their press release: "There is a growing number of older people for whom the conventional idea of retirement is no longer a desirable option. Still active, both in mind and body, a new 'third' generation is emerging that is not heading for the scrapheap. They want shelter, security, and care in old age, but they also want to remain active, continue to give to society and grow individually. At the forefront of this movement is the Amadea housing project, a dynamic group of individuals united by a wish to create an environmentally -sensitive working community, in other words - an ecovillage...
Two possible sites, in Devon and Shropshire, will allow space for homegrown fruit and vegetables, the incorporation of Permaculture principles and the inclusion of a reed bed water purification system...In the same spirit, transport, washing and health facilities will be shared."
If you are interested in living in an ecovillage and would like to find out more about Amadea's information service and waiting list, do get in touch. There will be a charge of £5.00 for this service.
Amadea:
The Living Village Trust
5/7 Castle Green
Bishops Castle
Shropshire
SY9 5BY.
Contact Carl Munson at the Living Village Trust on 01588 638958
Email living.village@btinternet.com
Small group who have been meeting for four years. They have been running a centre in London for the last three years, and are now planning to set up an ecovillage for up to 12 people in Norfolk, with a focus on home education for children and organic veg production. They are already registered as a Housing Co-op and as a charity, and are hoping to buy some land by the sea in Norfolk very soon. They are looking for more people who may be interested in living in the ecovillage, and they are also looking for investors - they estimate they will need around £100,000 for the project.
Contact Caroline Martin
28 Pancras Rd, London, NW1 2TB;
Tel: 0171 837 1661.
Ragman's Lane Farm is an established permaculture farm. It has been used as a teaching venue for nine years, and the site has been developed to demonstrate a wide range of permaculture systems within a commercial context.
Ragman's Lane is about educating and employing people to work the land sustainably, giving them the opportunity to 'learn on the job', as well as producing wholesome food for local markets.
http://www.ragmans.co.uk/home.html
A registered charity (No 801511), Treespirit aims "to protect and conserve trees and woods throughout the land, to create new woods" and via their literature and their organisation, which is neither politically nor religiously biased, "to create a deeper sense of awareness and affection for trees, woods and the natural environment as a whole." Membership is £10 (waged) or £6.50 (unwaged) or whatever you would like to give and this includes a subscription to the magazine, which is A4 format and packed full of stuff about trees. They welcome any articles, poems, drawings, letters or stories and legends on the theme of trees, mother earth and/or the natural world.
Tree Spirit has realised its dream of buying some land in Wales. This is being planted with native broad-leaf trees.
They hold 2 moots (gatherings of members) a year.
Annual membership is £10.00 waged or £6.50 low/unwaged.
Founder and secretary:
Martin Blount
Hawkbatch Farm
Arley
nr Bewdley
Worcestershire OY12 3AH
01299 400586
Magazine editor:
Shelley Griffiths
95, Ansty Road
Perry Barr
Birmingham B44 8AN
0121 356 2206
email
Shelley@tspirit.demon.co.uk