English Farming can be hard & sometimes isolating work; getting access to land if you are a new entrant can be difficult; challenging our unsustainable, unfair capitalist society and working to build better alternatives is best done in an atmosphere of mutual support and collaboration. For all these reasons and more, co-operative approaches to living and farming including intentional communities & eco-villages appeal to many LWA members. Tao Wimbush has ‘been there and done that’, and his new book (as well as being a very good read) will be a great resource for anyone who is thinking about going down this road.
In the first section of the book, Tao recounts his own journey through life in different types of community: Tipi Valley, where an unwritten code has evolved into a mutually agreed culture & structure over the years, Brithdir Mawr intentional farming community, with shared meals, regular meetings & communal work projects, and Holtsfield chalet settlement, which is closer to a conventional village model.
From there, in 2005 he became part of a group looking to work with Pembrokeshire’s new Low Impact Development planning policy (a fore-runner of Wales’ One Planet policy) to develop a new ecovillage, initially envisaged as 25 dwellings with between 3-5 acres for each household.
The group found a site near Glandwr, in north Pembrokeshire, and developed an initial plan for a scaled down village of 9 smallholdings on 76 acres, together with a central hub. Four years, an epic amount of paperwork, and a painful journey through planning applications, re-applications and appeals later, the Lammas ecovillage was finally approved.
The 12 years since 2009 have seen both the holdings at Lammas and the community grow and develop. Inevitably things haven’t always gone smoothly and for anyone considering their own project understanding the challenges – technical and interpersonal – will be something to take away from the experiences recounted in the book.
On the other hand, a real strength that might not have been expected in the planning days, and something I’ve seen as a friend and visitor, is the wider community that has sprung up around Lammas, with several more ecologically sound smallholdings created nearby mainly with One Planet Development planning permission. But first and foremost, 76 acres of degraded sheep farm has become biodiverse, prolific and productive, providing livelihood to the human residents, a home to wildlife, and a demonstration of the possibilities for a sustainable future.
The Lammas Ecovillage: Deep Roots and Stormy Skies by Tao Paul Wimbush is available from Feed A Read costing £15
More information about Lammas, Tipi Valley, Brithdir Mawr and other communities across the UK from Diggers and Dreamers www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk
Kate McEvoy has lived in community in Spain & Wales, and spent 5 happy years at Brithdir Mawr in Pembrokeshire before leaving in 2009 to focus on seed production.
