Sustainable Community Living Projects.
What is a 'sustainable' community? - And why are so few living sustainably - when so many people are apparently aware of the consequences of not doing so?
From Yale University to Boris Johnson, people keep asking why so few people are lowering their impact and living the sustainable lifestyle - have they tried?
There is a whole raft of people all bobbing around in a sea of regulations, and lots of applications for low-impact dwellings (and wind turbines) are refused.
Trying to get anyone to understand the reasons, needs and ethics of your 'community' is a nightmare - especially when there is little or no grant funding to help you 'get your message out'.
In the UK, the best two organisations to approach initially are:
- Business Link: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk
- The Guild: http://www.the-guild.co.uk
The Ark Communities page will soon list lots of community groups, and other bodies & organisations which will help provide you with the paperwork and documentation to back your proposals.
If you are interested in living in sustainable or ecological housing, please contact us, ( http://www.eco-designs.net/news--contact.html ) and we will provide you with information of local consultants or designers in your area, or provide you with a list of options and designs which are currently available. (As soon as we can, we will list these all in the Ark Directory.)
In the meantime, other websites to check up on are: 'Chapter 7', 'Community Land Trust', 'Co-Operative Housing', 'Co-Housing'.
For details of actual community sites, look to:
The Lammas Project
The Round House
(& search for grassroots sites)
There are thousands of other organisations, and I will be linking them as I go, and filling in those above later too.
This is all done at the race, as I have had to set up both this website, and the main 'ARK' website myself, unpaid (working rural lone parent of 3, self-employed, irregular wage - I have been working many 22 hour days!)
http://www.globalarkprojects.com
For more up-to-date information see the 'Networking' page listing some of my blog-sites, which I can now keep working on - having finally almost finished this website!
Fundamentally, our proposals in the UK have to comply to strict regulation, a short-list of which is shown below.
Following the Local Authority Planning guidelines, any new homes built in rural areas need to be:1 Sustainable2 Affordable3 To a proven needSustainable Community Living Projects in rural areas need to be replicable, and must have an impact assessment as well as a bio-diversity study.Many villages in the UK have lost their local shop/s, pub/s, Post Office, and school/s, good and vibrant sustainable community living projects offer affordable housing, land management employment opportunities, and a range of resources back to dying rural communities.Over the decades, many people have spent their working lives in cities and townships, and have looked forward to a retirement spent in a village or coastal location.With a housing economy out of the reach of most young people in rural areas as property prices continued to rise, and employment opportunities disappeared, families have become divided. Elder family members have been left in rural areas while their children and grandchildren have been financially driven to seek employment and housing in urban areas.What were once thriving communities have become quiet and morose, often offering no more than a church & a phone box.The lack of children's voices echoing winding lanes through the countryside has become synonymous with the 21st century. There are few young people left rurally to manage the native habitat, which is crucial to providing companion species with the bio-diversity upon which it is dependant.The planning guidelines for sustainable community living projects aims to provide rural communities with the resources they need, to once again, become vibrant as well as economically and ecologically viable.
