SUMMARY

A Residents Group and Project Team have been formed to create a cohousing community in Bridport.

The intended developer partner is Ecos Homes, an established small eco-developer who built Great Bow Yard, Langport, have several schemes in Somerset and Dorset, and are a subsidiary of Ecos Trust, an environmental education charity.

The preferred housing association partner is Synergy, the largest in Dorset, who are partners in the Threshold Cohousing Centre in North Dorset.

A positive initial meeting has already been held with senior contacts at West Dorset District Council, who expressed support in principle for the project. Our aim is to complete building in 2012.

Our immediate priorities are:

• Recruit additional active members for the Residents Steering Group.
• Ecos Trust to do a site search, feasibility study and project budget.
• Raise awareness and seek support from Bridport opinion leaders, organisations and local people generally.
• Expand the list of households interested in living in the project.

AIMS OF THE BRIDPORT COHOUSING COMMUNITY

The major aims of the project are:

• Sustainability: through shared resources: car pooling, market garden, green energy systems and facilities (e.g. laundry, guest rooms)
• Community: creating a neighbourhood with mutual support, good social life, safe setting, and common ownership and values
• Affordability: shared facilities mean individual units can be smaller and more affordable. Mutual support cuts living costs

Whilst the scale and facilities would be tailored to the specific site, the target features include:

• 20-40 units of housing, with sizes ranging from one-room studios to family houses.
• A high level of social housing provision, both rental and shared ownership: e.g. 35% of total units.
• Strong focus on sustainability, e.g. a biomass zero-emissions shared heating system, car pooling and limits on private car ownership, units built to Code for Sustainable Homes Level 5.
• Community market garden: space on site or within an easy walk where both cohousing residents and others can grow food.
• Workspaces: small office, studio and therapy spaces, plus scope to use the large meeting space for workshops and training groups.
• Guest accommodation for educational visitors, eco-tourism, and residents’ guests.
• Community facilities: the project would provide a range of facilities and services for residents and the whole of the host community: such as a car club, playgroup, special interest groups, and the community market garden.

We want to create a welcoming, informal community which includes families and single people, old and young, owner-occupiers and renters. We hope that this will be a place to work and play as well as to live, with the key shared values being sustainability, mutual support and enjoying ourselves.