Sustainable Communities

The problem:
One of society’s ongoing challenges is how to deliver affordable and sustainable housing, local employment, and affordable and readily available food and energy.

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The cost-of-living crisis has cast a light on all of these issues, which is why a radical, new approach is needed, which has the potential to address each.

Delivering energy independence:
Using power and heat generation solutions that are either integrated into the properties, or produced locally and included within the rental package, these communities would also benefit from affordable living costs. This would be made possible through local generation hubs that would produce low-cost heat and power using sustainable organic materials harvested from green halo woodland, alongside refuse derived fuel delivering energy independence, and security from Global markets.

Owned by Community Interest Companies, this would enable low rent, sustainable, secure, and thriving communities to be built, with any excess profit from rent returning to the local community in the form of grants for community projects.

Achieving affordable food through innovation:
Bolstered by innovative solutions designed to deliver nutritious, locally sourced, fresh, affordable food year-round, communities can be cultivated within which more money is earnt, and spent locally, bringing greater food and employment security for all.

Building a society with Sustainable and affordable housing:
Creating truly affordable housing is only possible through a radical change in housing development and planning policy to allow agricultural land to be developed around population centres into new forests with low density housing. With the sole purpose of creating new forests, and affordable rented housing owned by Community Interest Companies, this green halo housing would be serviced by cycle ways, autonomous vehicles linked back to the existing town centres, and limited vehicle access points.

This one change would bypass the disproportionately high cost of land in and around villages, towns, and cities that makes truly affordable housing near impossible.

Under this Green Halo housing model, affordable housing would be built on the periphery of towns, villages and cities in newly planted woodland, creating the potential for a carless green halo, helping to protect the environment.

Decoupled from private ownership, and for use only as rented housing, our vision is that this land would be leased for 200 years+ from landowners, giving them a steady income, enhanced by earnings from forestry and carbon credits, enabling rental prices to be dramatically reduced; reflecting only the cost of construction and long-term land lease commitments.