Co-housing: the purpose-built commune

Also featured on today's You and Yours programme was the Springhill Co-housing Community in Stroud, Gloucestershire, described as Britain’s first purpose-built commune (I’d not have the confidence to make that claim) with appropriate ‘eco-technology’ for its sustainability credentials and where a lot of thought has gone into the balance between communal interaction and privacy. There’s an article about the estate in today’s Independent.

Two comments in the broadcast item struck me. First, someone made the point that disputes are an inevitable part of living together and the co-housing project wasn’t an attempt to disguise that. And secondly, a young lad remarked half-joking that he didn’t much like the fact that ‘everyone who lives here can tell you off.’ Now that’s what I call informal social control.

The co-housing website is here. My earlier posting on the programme is here.