Second bid for eco-village (From Western Telegraph)

Second bid for eco-village

9:33am Tuesday 11th March 2008 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

Plans for a pioneering eco-village, sited on farmland in Glandwr, will be resubmitted to Pembrokeshire County Council this afternoon.

Lammas was refused planning permission for the village last October. Undaunted they have reworked the plans over the last five months.

"The first application was refused due to insufficient detail," said Paul Wimbush, Lammas co-founder.

"The new application, with over 150 drawings and over 1200 pages of explanation certainly contains plenty of detail.

"This time every blueberry bush has a five year cashflow forecast!" he joked.

The proposed village, on 76 acres of woodland and pasture, would consist of nine largely self sufficient eco-smallholdings built of straw bale, clom, timber, turf and earth.

The project will be completely off-grid, with water supplied from a spring and electricity from a hydro-electric unit and fuel from on-site biomass crops.

Each of the nine smallholdings will be required to run a land-based business in order to meet the stringent planning criterea. Enterprises include making linen shawls from flax, breeding compost worms and building bow-topped caravans, as well as supplying vegetables, fruit and more traditional farm produce.

A community hub building, "Yr Hwb" is also planned. This includes a hall, café and part-time shop.

In the long term Lammas say the ecovillage offers one solution to the challenges of affordable housing, rural regeneration, climate change and sustainability. In the short term it will benefit the local community by providing a shop, a minibus service into nearby towns and new footpaths.

The Lammas co-operative have taken the unique approach of making their whole planning application available online for all to see.

"Last time our application was so heavy that we submitted it by wheelbarrow. This time it would have taken two," said Paul.

"That is a lot of paper, even if it is recycled. So we made the whole application electronic, and then we had the idea of putting it on our website so that people can see what we are talking about.

"Last time we said "Trust us, it is good". This time we are saying "Have a look for yourselves, we think it is good, what do you think?"

A model of the Community Hub building will be available for the public to see at County Hall in Haverfordwest for the next three weeks.