A Vision

In his book The Earth Care Manual¹, Patrick Whitefield writes:
The key to implementing permaculture in the countryside is repopulation. This includes the breaking up of the present large, mechanised farms into small farms, smallholdings, and new hamlets, where energy-intensive production can be replaced with design-intensive and human-attention-intensive production. As well as farming and gardening there can be small scale manufacturing in the countryside, mainly for local needs and/or using local resources, and people teleworking from home. Many people will have polycultural incomes, usually including some food production.

The present cold landscape of wide open, deserted fields and infilled dormitory villages would develop into an intricate landscape, full of diversity, full of people and full of wildlife.

The BBC programme "A Farm for the Future" that many people have seen, and can often be found on the internet, covered some of the problems with modern farming practices, and showed some of the solutions that permaculture has to offer.

Creating a small part of this new countryside is one of the objectives of this organisation. A place where people can live with like minded neighbours, make a living in a sustainable way, be cared for when old or sick, and have a great life. It wouldn't be an isolated, self sufficient settlement, but would develop strong links with local people and communities, be involved in local Transition Initiatives, and become an accepted part of local life.

The idea isn't limited to land based rural settlements. Many of the ideas can also be applied to urban areas, and do not need to be land based even in a rural setting. The idea is to create settlements in small niches that can be purchased and developed fairly quickly, rather than big projects that can take years to come to fruition. By creating a network of small settlements we may achieve more in less time than by working individually on a few large projects.

On this scale, it's not possible to create optimum sized settlements, with a full and diverse mix of ages and skills, so outside links will be very important. We are facing an uncertain future, with potential climate change, energy, food and water supply problems, as well as the current financial instability, and the possibility of a breakdown in law and order. If this happens, being able to support each other, and being a respected part of the local community, should provide better security and protection. Hopefully, things will not get that bad, and it will be a place to have fun and a great life.

Challenges

Land and housing is very expensive, and the planning regulations make it very difficult, or impossible, to create new residential sites. Even in local authority districts with a low impact planning policy, it is difficult, time consuming and expensive to get planning permission for sites that conform to the policy. Lammas in Pembrokeshire is a good example. Many permaculture smallholders spend many years fighting the system to obtain planning permission, and have many obstacles put in their way to prevent or delay them achieving their aims.

We are now facing urgent food and energy problems, and need to transform our way of life quickly, and the obstacles put in the way by the system are preventing this happening fast enough. Government and big business are trying to maintain business as usual, so it's up to us ordinary individuals to take responsibility for our own lives and the future.

Rural Solutions

We need to find imaginative ways to start creating the kind of countryside outlined above by Patrick Whitefield. One way is to find opportunities to achieve it by working largely inside the system. There are farms for sale with enough houses with residential planning permission to create a small community (see Trelay Farm on the History page), and farmyards with planning permission to convert redundant buildings to homes. Although possibly not an ideal solution, it is something that could be created quite quickly, and without the years of battling with the planning system that many people have experienced.

The potential exists to create a small hamlet based on the Co-housing idea, where residents have their own home, but with shared facilities so each home can be smaller. This allows more people to live there, each home to be cheaper, and the cost of living and environmental impact to be lower than in conventional housing.

Some residents would make a living from the land, running smallholdings, market gardens and other land based enterprises. As with housing, some land would be held by an individual person or business, while other land would be shared. There could be shared facilities, such as machinery, packing sheds and delivery vehicles. It would not be a place for pony paddocks or "amenity land", but a working environment providing food, fuel and materials for the settlement and for sale locally. In a permaculture environment however, there should always be a place for nature and beauty, so the land would also be a place for recreation and enjoyment by all residents.

It may be possible to provide land for local people living outside the settlement to run smallholdings and other land based businesses, or provide allotments. This would help to strengthen ties with other local communities. If there isn't enough accommodation on site it could be a way to allow people living outside to become a part of our community.

Not everyone would work on the land. Some people would make a living, or part of their living, from local work outside the settlement, or from office based businesses, while others would be retired or semi-retired.

Due to the cost of land and housing, a settlement of this type could not be created without a number of older people who have considerable savings, and capital from the sale of houses, but it should be a place where younger people with more energy, but little or no money, also feel at home. There is potential for conflict between people making a subsistence living from hard land based work, and those who could earn far more money in less time from an office based job, but this is one of the many interesting challenges to be met.

In time, hopefully, similar settlements would be created nearby as farms and land came up for sale, or existing owners see the potential in the new ways of thinking. Having demonstrated the success to local politicians and planners, more support may also be forthcoming to make the process easier. And just maybe, the vision Patrick describes will start to take hold. If this doesn't happen, the settlement we create should still be a great place to live.

¹ Page 144 of The Earth Care Manual by Patrick Whitefield, Permanent Publications 1994, ISBN 1 85623 021 X