Background information
Liz Roman and Brighid Simpkin were members of a Cohousing
group
called Amadea for some years. Amadea was nation-wide so the members
found it difficult to meet to push their plans forward. Liz and
Brighid, who both lived in Cambridge, decided to form their own local
group. They also decided to open their new group to all ages unlike
Amadea which was for retired people. The first meeting was on the 14th
May 2000 and 22 people gathered at Hartington Grove, Cambridge to hear
what Liz and Brighid had to say. Most people came from the Cambridge
LETS group with others from the Quakers and Circle Dance group.
Enthusiasm at the first meeting was high and most of the original 22
people are still members of Enlinca although a lot do not attend
meetings any more.
As the group matured we decided to give ourselves a name. We
chose
Green Ginger but we were later advised that it might put some potential
business partners off so in August 2003 we changed it to Enlinca. This
web page is designed to attract
new members to Enlinca and hopefully serve as a point of contact for
potential business partners.
Our plan is to buy a large property or a building plot where
we can
establish a community. We will probably establish at least 2
communities because some members want to live in town and others in the
country. All members surveyed want to build very environmentally
friendly dwellings and where possible install things such as wind
turbines,
solar cells, compost toilets or reed beds, organic market gardens using
permaculture principles and to initiate car pools. Many members also
see community building as an opportunity for spiritual development.
Now that we are officially registered as a company we are
concentrating on looking for suitable properties and we are developing
a business plan to use to raise sufficient funds for the property we
find. Most members own their own houses but we will need some sort of
loan to cover the time between buying our community property and it
being ready for moving into. Some of us are in social housing so for
them, and to comply with the local plan, we are also looking to partner
with a registered social landlord (RSL).
In 2005 the Lancaster Cohousing group organised a very
successful
conference. Two things became very clear. Firstly, Cohousing is
enormously attractive and beneficial to many people, and secondly, the
British house building system makes it very difficult for forming
groups to make significant progress. Because of this a national
Cohousing Network was formed and this has been successful in spreading
the news about how many advantages we offer to the housing sector.
Lords, MPs and others are learning why Cohousing is so important and
action is slowly happening. Groups in other countries have also been
active educating anyone who will listen and the evidence is getting
stronger that we have a
human-centred way of living that can bring immense social and
ecological advantages to an increasingly crowded world. Enlinca is
therefore optimistic that with this increased
support we can finally get our first community built and bring the
advantages of intentional communities to our local area.
Page last updated 29/09/2011.
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